A review by tuomosuominen
Death in Focus by Anne Perry

2.0

I’ve read quite a lot of historical crime and spy fiction set in pre–WWII Europe, Alan Furst and Philip Kerr being my favourite authors of the genre. Based on a New York Times crime fiction column a few months ago (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/01/books/review/crime-fiction-marilyn-stasio-martha-grimes-anne-perry.html), Anne Perry’s Death in Focus seemed perfect for me. I was, however, disappointed to find that Perry’s book features a not very plausible plot (with a what–were-they-smoking culmination), a parade of stereotypical Nazis and some characters whose role in the story remains unclear (like the heroine’s fiancé, who apparently was in intelligence but was charged with treason, or her sister, who just drops out of the story, or the completely unconvincing British ambassador’s daughter marrying a Gestapo officer). There are a number of standard-issue action sequences throughout the book, but they fail to make this a convincing spy story. Perry’s book lacks the depth of personalities, locations and historical context of Furst and Kerr. The author’s website says this was ”Elena Standish book 1”. I won’t be holding my breath for book 2.
PS I noticed Gretchen’s review https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2803335547 and indeed, the name MI6 was not used pre-WWII (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Intelligence_Service). Very poor fact–checking by author and publisher.