Book Review
We Shall Not Sleep By ANNE PERRY
Reviewed by PEGGY BARNETT
Anne Perry has sold over 20 million copies of her books worldwide, her website reports. She has three different mystery series currently: two set in Victorian England and one set during World War I.

Once upon a time movies were shown continuously, along with "short subjects." One could enter a story midway and stay to see the first half in the next showing. This reminiscence is brought on by the fact that this reviewer entered Perry's latest series at the third book. She (the reviewer) is not sure this was a bad idea, though it is certainly frowned upon by purists.

The book is We Shall Not Sleep. Chaplain Joseph Revley is with the English troops in the trenches of France and Germany in October of 1918 as the story opens. His sister Judith is an ambulance driver, his other sister is married to a navy commander, and his brother Matthew works for the intelligence service. Their parents were murdered in 1914. The reader soon learns that they were murdered to keep them from revealing a secret.

The secret is that the Peacemaker, a person known to the Reavleys by what he has done, but not his identity, a main thread of the story. All of this background has formed the plot of the previous two books, but it is easy to catch on to what is going on. The central evidence for the nefarious plan of the Peacemaker is hidden by the Reavleys, so their lives are in imminent danger, especially since they do not know who their enemy is, just that he is a respected Englishman.

Of course Joseph and Judith are in danger, anyway, because they are on the front lines of a deadly war. Perry gives an accurate account of life and death on the Western Front, and World War I buffs will enjoy that aspect of the story. Meanwhile, the tension rises as the main characters pursue romance even as they try to determine who the Peacemaker is, and how they can prevent him from accomplishing his goal.

Perry pretends that her characters are not perfect, but they seem a bit "too-good-to-be-true." Time is taken to explore the ethics of war, patriotism, and revenge, but it is clear whose side Perry is on.

About coming in to the middle of a movie -- that's what happens when you read the third book of a series first. As I said before, sometimes it works out for the best.

We Shall Not Sleep is available at the Mary Willis Library.

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