At Some Disputed Barricade

This is the 4th of Anne Perry's quintet of novels set before and during the first world war. I was a little unsure of what to expect, given both her reputation as a crime novelist specialising in the Victorian period, and the sometimes easy and simplistic fiction set during periods of war, but found this book far more engaging and morally complex or ambiguous than I had expected.<br /><br />It is 1917 and Joseph Reavley is chaplain of his regiment being massacred at Passchendaele; while his sister is driving a front-line ambulance, and his brother is in the Intelligence service at home trying to track down `the Peacemaker', a man desperate to bring an end to the war through alliance with Germany. Individual stories of the murder of an incompetent General in the trenches, cases of sexual blackmail amongst pro-peace MPs, and Judith's own war experiences intertwine without ever becoming too tidily and neatly pressed together.<br /><br />Where I think this novel excels is in the dramatising of the twisted moralities of a nation at war, where both the `idealists' and the `traitors' (and to Perry's credit, no-one is securely either one or the other) can want the same thing; and where a passion to stop the destruction of a generation of men not just in England but in Europe and farther afield, a morally good goal in itself, can lead to actions that are more than morally questionable.<br /><br />With visceral depictions of warfare, along with the desperate struggle to maintain some dignity, honour and sense of hope in the midst of such unimaginable carnage, this is ultimately a very humane novel that doesn't judge or lecture or table-thump. Far, far more than a `crime novel' this deserves to be far more widely read and is, I think, Perry's coming of age as a writer. It certainly isn't necessary to have read the earlier books first but I think it does deepen the characterisation to have followed some of the same people from 1914.

The third of Perry's WWI series featuring the Reavsley siblings, this book revolves around a mutiny in the regiment in which Joseph is a captain/chaplain and which his sister Judith serves as an ambulance driver. A new, rigid, ignorant major, a general's son, is discovered dead, killed by an English bullet, and the truth soon emerges that 12 men held a kangaroo court, found him guilty of ignoring the advice of more seasoned combat generals, and holding a mock execution in which one of the bullets turned out to be real. Joseph finds himself saddled with his men's defense and hiding his sister's part in their escape.<br /><br />Against the capture, escape, return, and trial of the men is also Matthew Reavsley's renewed pursuit of the arch-manipulator and traitor called the Peacemaker, whom he thought dead. Now he learns the man is still alive and still trying to manipulate the war for a hoped-for new order in which there will be no more wars, one that will result either in a German-English peace that divides the Continent (and the world) between the two powers, or a Communist victory in Russia which will create a warless world.<br /><br />The book is off to something of a slow start, but it picks up halfway through. The descriptions of the battle of Paschendaele, fought during the wettest August anyone can remember, with trenches swimming with water and debris and the mud up to mens' thighs, is heartbreaking. It's all too easy to understand how men would break under the commands of an unsympathetic and unheeding officer that would send them into life-threatening situations that could be avoided.

I barely finished this book. I have read the 3 books in the series leading up to this one and become increasingly disappointed in each. Perry has a wonderful subject to write about. There are an unlimited number of stories and plot lines she could follow. And when she does what she does best - give the reader a clear view of a world at a specific place in time and at a specific location - the book shines. The detail she provides in her narrative is always impressive.<br /><br />However, this series has an over-arcing plot line about a Peacemaker character who supposedly wants peace for England, regardless of the price. This plot line is completely unnecessary. Each of the books has at least one and sometimes multiple stand-alone mysteries to solve and this lame plot line is superfluous. Unfortunately the amount of space devoted to this comic book villain seems to increase in each successive book. It occupied so much space in this book I wasn't able to simply skip through the pages devoted to it. There were too many.<br /><br />It appears that the last book in the series will focus on this plot. So I won't read it. That is a shame because the primary story she should be focusing on - how the various members of a family survived through the war was interesting and I would like to have known the conclusion to that story.

I am really skimming these Anne Perry WWI books now (one to go!), and the primary merit of this one is that it is shorter than the earlier ones. (And, in a less snarky vein, Perry gives lots of period detail that makes the scene very real, very 3-dimensional. That is her strength in these books. Not plot. Not character. And, dear heaven, not dialogue. And tel me, please: did villagers really give their sons names like TIDDLY WOP in the late 19th century???)<br /><br />Her plotting grows sillier. While the Peacemaker is still trying to bring the war to an end (and for whatever reason, figures it would be better to have England lose than to have Germany lose. Why, exactly?), as usual another murder must be solved by the most exasperating Reavley, Joseph. This time, it's an incompetent and arrogant officer whom Joseph finds dead in no-man's-land. His wound doesn't seem to be battle-inflicted. And, wouldn't you just know it, just as Joseph is thinking he maybe won't mention that to anyone else, nosey-body reporter Mason stumbles along and, for whatever perverse reason, invests the reporting of the officer's possible murder with huge meaning and forces Reavley to report it. And whom else would the commanding officer choose to investigate the murder but, of course, Reavley. And whom do the men eventually court-martialed for the murder choose to defend them? You guessed it!<br /><br />On top of the beyond-suspension-of-disbelief plots (the Peacemaker sublot is equally ludicrous), Perry must think her readers all suffer from severe memory loss. She repeats, repeats, repeats: the dead rats in the trenches; the deaths of the Reavley parents; the taste of tea made in a Dixie can; the rain, how hard it is to steer an ambulance, etc., etc. A good editor could have made this a novella.<br /><br />

WW1 is known to most people only by what they learn in their history class. I don’t know if the events in this story are true or not, or composed of several incidences during the inexplicable horror of “the war to end all wars” but this series has forced me to delve deeper into events and the battle lines. I realize the characters are fictional but the events may or may not be. Anyone looking for a quick resolution to who the “Peacemaker” is, is not seeing the bigger picture “the war”, from the home front, to the battlefronts, the war at sea and the politics of it. This series is not just a mystery to be solved.

Good book and good story. One of the best quotes about ministry I've seen in a while comes from this book. <br /><br />“Maybe that was what a chaplain’s job really was- not to teach others to believe, but to be seen to believe oneself. To stand no so much for a specific faith, but for the endurance of faith, for its power to outlast everything else."<br /><br />It's lead me to a new understanding of chaplaincy. Very cool.

Fourth in the WWI series. Drama maintained until the end.

More tedious moralizing and repetitious narrative bog down the fourth installment in the series.

I am very fond of Anne Perry's novels; they are of earlier times and she seems to have a voice that is particularly well matched for those times. This one, which is set nearly three quarters of a century after the Inspector Monk mysteries I have been reading, is a gut-wrenching novel of the front-line fighting and the back-line battles of minds during World War I. I have to presume, although the publisher does not say so (what is wrong with these people?) that this is both a sequel to at least one other novel and also a prequel to some other novel: I say that, because the text reading about things that happened in the past seems to make this a continuation, and there is no final result of the major story line. <br /><br />What there is, however, is an unforgettable account of what it was like for the British serving in the front lines during the Battle of Passchendaele (also known as the Third Battle of Ypres), which I had never heard of, but which apparently was the real turning point of the war. I have just read through the Wikipedia accounts of that battle, which are all high-level stuff. Perry's novel is quite different, focusing on a drama involving a chaplain now serving as a captain in a unit which regularly goes out at night to find and bring back wounded from the day's battle, his sister, who is driving an ambulance with an American volunteer as an assistant, and a fellow officer who is a former student of his from Cambridge, who is thinking of organizing a mutiny because of the senseless warfare, which resulted in just under 250,000 casualties on the Allied side and over 400,000 on the German side. Meanwhile back in London, the chaplain's younger brother, involved in the Secret Intelligence Service, is busily investigating a political conspiracy to bring about a British-German union as a way of peace, with that separate story being told in alternate chapters. This complexity is difficult to follow at times, which is why I have to believe that one or more of three other books Perry wrote about the First World War are prequels to this one, but the novel stands on it own as an intense look at the squalor and hardships of front line life, along with a penetrating side story involving the pettiness of some high-bred officers and the community spirit of the low-born, a perennial Perry subject. Perry's brother is an army surgeon, which may have helped her portrayals of what at times seems like WWI MASH.<br /><br />As a footnote, Wikipedia points out that Adolf Hitler was one of the German soldiers on the other side of the battle line. I'm a bit surprised that Perry overlooked the chance to introduce him into the story, especially since the chaplain and his antagonistic former student have to go far behind the German lines in their search for a deserter.<br />

I think Anne Perry is one of the finest authors of historical mysteries I have ever read. She has such a fine sense of atmosphere and really delves into the character's lives, personalities and feelings and places them in the most extraordinary situations where every character is tested almost beyond endurance. Perry also analyzes historical and moral issues with such delicacy and balance that I feel I have a much better understanding of important issues. Of course, Perry excels at character development, but also crafts such interesting and intriquing mysteries that I race through the pages. Her writing is superb and also is a pleasure to listen to on audiobooks.<br /><br />Spoiler alerts!!!!!!!<br /><br />As far as the story itself. . . this book is the fourth of five books about WWI. Joseph, Judith and Matthew Reavley (along with a brief appearance from their sister, Hannah) are siblings that are all involved in WWI. Joseph is a chaplain on the front lines. The horrific battle of Passchendaele is the backdrop of the story. Matthew is an intelligence officer who thought he had killed the Peacemaker in novel 3. His work is just as dangerous as he never knows whom to trust. He discovers that the Peacemaker is still alive and still manipulating things to bring about his own ends. Judith, a young woman of extraordinary courage, is still driving ambulance for the British front lines. <br />We again meet Richard Mason, the war correspondent working with the Peacemaker. Perry adds new dimensions and depth to our understanding of Richard Mason.<br /><br />The basic outline of the story is that a new commanding Major, an incompentent and arrogant officer, is murdered by his own men--men in Joseph's regiment. Joseph is torn between loyalty and justice as he works to solve the mystery.<br /><br />Anne Perry very clearly believes that despite its terrible costs, the British were obligated to go to war with Germany. This is an important theme in the entire series. However, she does not shy away from the terrible costs of war, the incompentence of some of the officers, the brutality and pain of it. She makes one understand fully the devasation of the war which cost nearly an entire generation of men. Nor does Ms. Perry paint the Germans as brutal and evil. She gives a rather intriguing glimpse of the other side during this novel and one fully realizes how frightening it is when rulers with lust for power have the power to drive entire nations to war. And the cost is really terrible. <br /><br />If you haven't read this series, it is important that you read it in chronological order, beginning with the first novel, No Graves as yet. <br /><br />