SOURCE: A review of Highgate Rise, in Publishers Weekly, Vol. 238, No. 16, April 5, 1991, p. 138.

In the following review, the critic concludes, "Rounded out by a host of lively characters, [The Face of a Stranger is a memorable tale."]

Having temporarily abandoned Victorian police inspector Thomas Pitt and his highborn wife, Charlotte, in her last, highly acclaimed novel, The Face of a Stranger, Perry features the duo once again. She exhibits her customary skill in recreating 19th-century London, but here her well-drawn contrasts of upstairs and downstairs Victorian society have added psychological acuity. And her focus on a social issue—the secret ownership by members of high society of appalling slum housing—lends depth to the mystery surrounding the death of Clemency Shaw, a courageous woman who devoted her life—and may have lost it—to exposing those who built their fortunes on the misery of the poor. Highgate is...