A nice first book. Fairly straight forward mystery. I like the setting and see a lot of potential for the 2 main characters. ( )

Inspector Thomas Pitt is assigned the case of the Cater Street Hangman. After two housemaids and a gentlewoman of the area are found garroted on Cater Street, Inspector Pitt has to interview the upper middle-class residents of the street.

Miss Charlotte Ellison and her family are residents. In her Victorian household, it is her father who makes the rules. One of his rules that his daughters not read the newspapers as the news is too unpleasant for ladies. Charlotte has taken to sneaking the newspapers from the butler's pantry so that she can find out what is happening. While outwardly obedient, she sometimes rebels against the constraints of her life.

Charlotte has an older sister Sarah who is married to a man Charlotte has fancied herself in love with since he first began courting her sister. She also has a younger sister named Emily who is determined to marry a man with a title. However, he has a reputation as a rogue and a gambler which makes Charlotte fear for her sister's future and reputation.

With an unknown killer stalking the neighborhood, suspicions begin to grow and they grow in Charlotte's house too. She wonders and fears that either her father or her brother-in-law could be the murderer. And she is not alone in her fears or suspicions. Her mother and her sisters share them. Both her mother and her sister Sarah begin to question how much they really know about the lives of the men they married.

Meanwhile, Pitt is visiting and questioning both Charlotte's father and brother-in-law and interviewing the servants too. During his frequent visits, he and Charlotte come to know and admire each other. But there seems to be little future for the two of them since he is not of her social class.

The story was filled with Victorian details and attitudes complete with a double standard regarding what men and women are allowed to do. Secrets exposed threaten the futures of her mother's and her sister's marriages. But then Sarah becomes another victim of the Hangman.

This was an entertaining mystery filled with vivid characters. ( )

A thrilling journey into the dark underside of Victorian London. Some truth in that blurb, I say.

A week or two ago I had barely heard of this author; but when she passed away just recently, I realised I already had a couple of her books. This was the first in an eventual series of over 30 books in a whodunnit series set in late Victorian London. The whodunnit aspect however takes second place to the interactions between the characters, particularly the household of the upper middle class Ellison family, and they with Inspector Thomas Pitt. One of the daughters Charlotte is our principal character and, while I did warm her to as the novel went on, most of the other characters irritated me to a greater or lesser degree. I understand about the "everyone has their place and should know it" Victorian attitude, but I felt it was rammed down my throat ad nauseam, and a bit more plot would have been good in places. The eventual unveiling of the murderer in the last few pages was a little sudden and unlikely. I will probably follow the series at least part of its long way, though am in no rush to do so. ( )

Thomas Pitt es un discreto policía londinense destinado a desentrañar, en plena época victoriana, los crímenes engendrados por una sociedad reprimida e hipócrita. En esta ocasión, un barrio de clase acomodada se ve sacudido por un sanguinario asesino. Las víctimas son siempre mujeres jóvenes y aparecen brutalmente estranguladas. En su investigación, Pitt encuentra el apoyo de Charlotte Ellison, una encantadora muchacha disconforme con las rígidas actitudes de su clase social.