BookBrowse Reviews At Some Disputed Barricade by Anne Perry

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The fourth entry in Anne Perry's World War I series

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At Some Disputed Barricade is the fourth volume in Perry's five-part WWI saga, recently published in paperback at the same time as the fifth and final volume, We Shall Not Sleep. The central plot of each of the five books enables them to stand alone, but a story arc, involving the four Reavley siblings and the death of their parents at the hands of the "Peacemaker", runs through all five books. This, together with the fact that each book is set chronologically in one year of the War, means that some readers will prefer to read the books in order, while others (like this reviewer) will be quite happy dipping in from time to time.

If you enjoy thrillingly written mysteries set against a strong backbone of historical events you'll find much to appreciate in Perry's series:

No Graves As Yet opens in Cambridge in 1914, on the eve of World War I. Peace-loving chaplain Joseph Reavley and his brother Matthew, an intelligence officer, investigate the sudden deaths of their parents and discover that their father, a higher up in British society, was in possession of a document that implicated those even higher up of an act of treason.

Shoulder The Sky, part espionage thriller, part front-line adventure, is set in 1915, mainly at the Second Battle of Ypres (Ypres, located in the Flemish part of Belgium, is pronounced "EEpr" but was referred to by the English-speaking soldiers as "Wipers"). The action alternates between the trenches and the home front in England as Joseph and Matthew collaborate to unmask a deadly killer who might be implicated in the murder of their parents.

Angels In the Gloom, set in 1916, finds Joseph ministering to the soldiers at the front, along with his sister, Judith, an ambulance driver; Matthew's fighting the covert war in London. Only their sister Hannah, living with her children in Cambridgeshire, seems to be out of the firing line, but spies and traitors are rampant in Cambridgeshire and the sinister figure known as the Peacemaker, who killed their parents, is still at large.

At Some Disputed Barricade (March 07). It's July 1917 and Joseph and Judith are still on the Western Front at the Battle of Passchendaele (also known as the Third Battle of Ypres). The regiment's trusted commanding officer is replaced by a pompous incompetent who is soon found dead at the hand of his own men. Joseph would like to turn a blind eye but knows that he must not. Judith, however, anguished at the prospect of court-martials and executions for the twelve men arrested for the crime, has no such inhibitions and, risking her own life, helps all but one of the prisoners to escape. Back in England, Matthew continues his desperate pursuit to unmask the sinister figure known as the Peacemaker - an obsessed genius who has committed murder and treason in an attempt to stop Britain from winning the war. As Matthew trails the Peacemaker, Joseph tracks his escaped comrades through Switzerland and into enemy territory.

We Shall Not Sleep (April 07), the closing volume, is set in the closing days of WWI. Matthew, Joseph and Judith are all together in the trenches of Flanders, and are still locked in the deadly struggle with the Peacemaker, but there is also the mystery of a murdered nurse to contend with.

This review was originally published in The BookBrowse Review in April 2007, and has been updated for the April 2008 edition. Click here to go to this issue.