I’m half way through this book; this is the first one I have read in this series, but already it reminds me of the similar series by Anne Perry featuring the characters William Monk and Hester Latterly. The characters of Frank Malloy and Sarah Brandt could easily be Monk and Latterly with different names. However, Thompson doesn’t seem to be as effective at capturing the essence of an era as Perry is. There are many things about the book that make me realize this is a story about a by-gone era, written from the perspective of the 21st century—character attitudes and world views, especially. Perry seems to have more of a gift of letting go of this present age and allowing herself to be fully absorbed in another.