A new historical mystery series about Elena Standish. She is a British photographer. The setting is in the 1930’s just before WWII.
A suspense story that will keep you intrigued throughout the book.

Another winner!

Death in Focus is about Elena and her older sister, Margot. They're on vacation on the Italian coast. When Elena has to part with Ian she decides she's going to ride with him on the train back to England.

However, things take a turn and her diplomat father and grandfather become worried about her when he realizes there was a change in plans and an incident in Berlin.

It's a great historical mystery filled with intrigue and suspense.

Anne Perry is a master of historical fiction. The Victorian Mystery series, the WWI books and now we are treated to pre-WWII intrigue. She draws you in with an unwitting female character who gets caught up in the pre-war intrigue of MI-6 and the machinations of Hitler.

I received a copy of this from Netgalley. Thank you!!
Elena Standish travels to Italy to photograph a convention. While there she meets Ian,a young man that she travels towards France with. Suddenly she's thrown into a world of espionage and assassination attempts,and an emergency commission from the Engliah secret service, traveling to Berlin,does Elena have what it takes to survive?

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an eARC of this book.
While I have read Anne Perry books in the past, never have I become so quickly hooked on a series. Elena Standish is at the center. Love this character and pretty much the whole family. I look forward to reading many more.
4.5 stars.

Death in Focus by Anne Perry seemed to be an interesting mystery. I had great hopes for this book as I know that this author is renowned in this genre. However, I found this to be just an okay mystery. I read more like a young adult book, which surprised me. I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher with no obligations. These opinions are entirely my own.

New to this genre. I don't read murder, suspense anymore, but I someone told me that Anne Perry is a good author and I should try reading her books. I did, and this book was an interesting read with a murder plot. The book was straight forward, nothing complicated, some twists and turns. Overall good author.

A young photographer gets involved with a man who lead her into a dangerous mission. Who should she believe, the man she ran away with how has been killed or the one who seems to have her best interest at heart? It's very readable and like Anne Perry's books filled with great descriptions of locations and lifestyles and history details. Fun for fans and new readers alike.

In the days of Adolf Hitler's rise to power, a young photographer named Elena Standish travels to Italy to photograph a convention. After meeting a personable young man named Ian, they travel together towards France, only to be thrown into a frightening world of espionage, assassination, and events that seem to hurtle headlong toward the start of another World War. Undertaking an emergency commission from the English secret service, Elena travels to Berlin, camera in hand, determined to stop an international incident that will split Europe in two.

Meanwhile, back in England, Elena's grandfather Lucas Standish ponders the imminent future and impending doom that faces Europe. Unbeknownst to his family, Lucas was the chief of MI6, the British secret service, during the last war. Too old to play that game anymore, he can only hope that the weak-kneed politicians will stop conciliating that menace Hitler. But when he receives word that his favorite granddaughter Elena is in trouble in Berlin, he discovers that one is never too old to work behind the scenes....

In this first book of a new series, Anne Perry rides the popular wave of World War II fiction to create her own memorable offering. The cast of characters contain echoes of Anne Perry's ensembles from other series, but this gives the book a sense of comfortability rather than a tediousness. One thing I enjoy is Perry's unique gift for delivering historical detail in dialogue that unfolds the character at the same time as explaining the situation. As usual, Perry's pacing keeps the reader turning pages, and while Elena is not quite as standout a protagonist as some of Perry's other leading ladies, Lucas makes up for any deficiencies with his own septuagenarian charm. Readers who enjoy World War II fiction will enjoy this international thriller.

Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Fans of Anne Perry will be excited for a new series from her. Death in Focus follows disgraced Elena Standish, the daughter of a former ambassador to Germany. The time is post WWI and Hitler is coming into power. Elena is trying to find where she fits. She worked for the Home Office during the war and fell in love with a man who turned out to be a traitor. Not knowing if she was a leak, the Home Office let her go.

Elena is a hobby photographer trying to get her professional legs and make a life for her self. Along with her widowed sister, they are on a trip taking photos at a Economists convention. There Elena meets a man that she falls for. This man gets a mysterious telegram and must depart for Berlin immediately and asks Elena to come with him and he will drop her off in Paris, which was her next destination. You would think Elena had learned not to easily trust men, but she goes with him. On the way to pack they come across a maid who just discovered a dead boy, still Elena goes. Shockingly the man is murdered on the train and another man who was following them helps Elena get away before she is taken up for murder. Elena then trusts this new man with her life and runs instead of staying and telling the police what happened.

Meanwhile back in England a plot has been discovered to assassinate a German radical who Hitler doesn't like and framing the British for it. They also become aware there is a mole. Elena has been caught up in this intrigue. I am a very casual reader of Perry but I had a hard time believing that Elena, who is still grieving the loss of trust her country and family has for her, who be following everything these strange men tell her. She stumbled along from one mishap to another. I read about 45% of the book and had to put it down. The only way this could have been saved for me is if Elena was a super spy and knew all along who the men are and their motives and managed to foil the plot. Someone let me know if this is the case because maybe I will finish the book then.

I was so hoping for a strong female lead for the new series, instead I found a wishy washy Elena who is blown about in the breeze. Otherwise the book is nicely written and has great historical detail. You really feel like you are in the time period facing the economic hardships after the war, getting caught up in Hitler's hysteria, and the sweeping changes taking over Europe at the time.

Today is Veterans Day in the U.S. and Remembrance Day in the U.K. and other Commonwealth countries. On this day in 1919, “at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month”, the guns of World War I finally went silent.

I don’t usually post a review on this day, but this marvelous book dropped into my lap, and it seemed so perversely relevant to the day that I couldn’t help myself.

Death in Focus does not take place during the Great War, but the war and its aftermath directly influences everything that happens within it. Both because all of the characters are still scarred by the war well over a decade later, but also because the seeds of World War II were sown in the treaty that ended World War I.

But that’s something that is taken as a given now. One of the things that underpins this story is that those seeds were sown on both sides of that first conflict. The punishing reparations inflicted upon Germany as the losing side set up the desperate economic conditions that fueled Hitler’s rise to power.

The brutal death toll on the winning side, particularly in Great Britain, led to the tragic appeasement tactics of the interwar years. Britain had lost an entire generation of young men, and few of the survivors were willing to entertain the possibility that all of those sacrifices might be in vain. Many, including those in government, were willing to tolerate anything, no matter how heinous, in order to preserve the fragile peace.

Not that there weren’t plenty of people in Britain, including Duke of Windsor (the former King Edward VIII) who sympathized with entirely too many of Hitler’s goals, including the concept of the Aryans as the so-called “master race” along with the willingness to eliminate any people who were not part of that “race”. A belief that led to the concentration camps and the gas chambers.

While Death in Focus doesn’t deal directly with the factions in Britain who believed that the concentration camp opened at Dachau in 1933 when this story takes place) were just a good start, it does give insight into those, both in government and out, who simply could not face the idea of another war because they lost so much in the last war and couldn’t even bear the idea of doing it again.

So, the story of Death in Focus operates on two fronts. One is the story that follows Elena Standish as she finds herself in the midst of Nazi Germany on the run from both the Gestapo and the British Foreign Service, betrayed by her own country and framed for a crime that she did not commit.

Meanwhile, back on the home front, her father and grandfather are at loggerheads, and not just about Elena’s current plight.

Her father is a senior official in the diplomatic service who is certain that his father, a paper pusher during the first war, can’t possibly know what the current situation in Germany – or anywhere else – is really like. That the old man can’t possibly understand why so many, including himself, will do anything to prevent another war. And that both Hitler and Mussolini are actually doing good things for their countries that shouldn’t be interfered with from the outside.

But granddad is actually the retired head of MI6. He knows perfectly well what happened during the first war, and still has his finger on the pulse of current events around the world. He is certain that another war is coming and is beyond worried that his beloved granddaughter seems to have been unwittingly caught up in it.

Escape Rating A: As much as I got completely wrapped up in this story, I have to admit that what grabbed me wasn’t Elena, even though this is the first book in a projected series that will follow her exploits.

Exploits that remind me more than a bit of those of Maisie Dobbs, particularly in Journey to Munich, where Maisie was undercover in Nazi Germany in 1938. Although Maisie’s official cover doesn’t fail quite as badly as the way that Elena gets dumped in the soup.

Instead, the fascination for me with Death in Focus was on the home front, with her grandfather’s internal conflict. He has kept his secrets for so long, to the point where he and his son have become estranged, because he knows the war is coming and his son, in grief over his own wartime losses, needs desperately to stick his head in the sand and believe that the peace will last. Their characters and their dilemma resonated more for me, perhaps because they felt more fully developed as characters. Elena, like Maisie Dobbs in the first book in her series, has a lot of development yet to come.

In spite of his diplomatic service, her father doesn’t see what is going on because he doesn’t want to see. And in his willful blindness we see the same in plenty of others, including the government of Neville Chamberlain. Hindsight is not only 20/20, but it is downright painful.

At the same time, this is a murder mystery. Elena seems to be trailing dead bodies behind her, and she doesn’t know why. She only knows that she herself is not the killer. So there is a traditional mystery to solve, albeit in very nontraditional circumstances.

In the end, many characters discover that things are not quite as they seem. Including everything that Elena believed about her trip to Berlin and what she discovered. And that while revenge is still a dish best served cold, sometimes the chef for that dish misjudges their enemies and finds themselves served instead.

First Sentence: Elena narrowed her eyes against the dazzling sunlight reflected off the sea.

On a vacation in Italy with her sister Margot, Elena Stanford meets Walter Mann and Ian Newton. An immediate attraction causes Elena to go with Ian to Berlin after a message compels him there. A shocking event and a request from Ian sends Elena on to Berlin, and into a danger from which she may not escape.

Perry masterfully sets the stage, lulling one into a sense of elegance, music and possible romance. How effectively she dispels one of that notion. She describes the emotional environment of the time, --"Fifteen years after the war, everyone still had their griefs: loss of someone, something, a hope or an innocence, if not more. And fear of the future."--conveying the almost frenetic gaiety and desperation for emotional connection so well. Perry is such an evocative writer, and her characters are dimensional and interesting, but it's her perspective which causes one to pause, consider and want to share what one has read with others. She also understands pacing; taking one seamlessly from tranquility into the threat of danger.

The story is told from several POVs. One may smile at the timelessness dismissiveness with which the younger generation considers the older one, and of Elena's brother's view of her talent and ambition. Elena's resourcefulness, strength, and determination; a hallmark of Perry's female characters, is impressive even though one may question the suddenness of Elena's decisions.

There is great lyricism to Perry's writing, particularly in her descriptions of nature, yet there is also a touch of pathos. In 1933, one is witnessing the rise of Hitler and Mussolini's move toward fascism. It is somewhat painful to realize how much of the 1930s are reflected in that which is happening today. The book does have a strong historical and political message. While some may object and possibly be offended, others may decide to learn from it –"Hitler is either assuming more power for himself or appointing bloody awful men to do it for him."

It is Perry's description of those who have been in a war and suffer from what we now know as PTSD, and her portrait of the time's events—"The violence is increasing, and the oppression. They're building camps to put prisoners in, not people who've committed crimes, but people who are born guilty of being …" that truly brings to bear the reminder that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

When Perry switches gears, it is sudden, surprising, and very effective. She triggers our suspicions and then makes us question them.

The plot isn't perfect. There are points of repetitiveness, a lack of focus, and what feels to be plot holes. The female characters are occasionally too trusting, but that's part of the plot. On the other hand, there is excellent suspense and a very effective sense of danger. One has a real sense of the fear people experienced during this time. Elena's determination to photograph the events she witnesses, and then to keep the film safe, were a strong element one hopes to see continued. One must give Perry credit for making this time in Berlin painfully real and for teaching us details of history we've not known.

"Death in Focus" is a somewhat painful, but highly relevant read. It does contain a well-done red herring, and a wicked twist leading to a very good ending.

DEATH IN FOCUS (HistSusp-Elana Stanford-Europe-1933) – G+
Perry, Anne – 1st in series
Ballantine Books – Sept 2019

I loved this first in a new series by Anne Perry. Elena is in Amalfi with her sister, taking photographs for an economics conference. It is the 1930’s, and post war Europe is seeing the resurgence of right wing factions in Italy and Germany. Elena gets mixed up in a murder, ends up in Germany as the brown shirts are burning books and beginning their reign of terror. I was on the edge of my seat throughout the book. Highly recommended, for the atmosphere, characters and mystery. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. Can’t wait for the next one.

An unusual WW II book with a female as the main character. Anne Perry has developed a young woman who is able to evaluate her surroundings and take charge of her own actions, then built a whole community of supporting characters that help keep this story line tense and exciting. The story builds with little effort until our heroine finds herself in a situation that will make you keep turning pages until you cheer when she escapes. An unusually good story with an original cast of characters. I would most definitely recommend this one to everyone.

I give a 4 star rating for the wealth of historical perspective, & it's easy readability. I had it at a solid 4 star, until the end....when I might've wavered to a 3.5 in rating due to the surprise ending...I just didn't know if it 'fit' (it came quick & I didn't see that coming!), but maybe it does...?! It certainly sets up the series, I think! I'll definitely continue on with it, & see where it goes.
This might read easily in the same vein as a Victoria Thompson or Rhys Bowen historical mystery....great historical setting/description/story, along with a good drama/mystery, & no overt sex, bad language, or gore.
I received this e-ARC from the Random House Publishing Group-Ballantine via NetGalley, after offering to read it & post my own fair/honest review.

Death in Focus is the first installment of a new mystery series by Anne Perry, known for her bestselling historical detective fiction mystery series set in Victorian England as well as a slew of other historical fiction novels. This novel takes place in 1933, fifteen years after the end of WWI. Adolf Hitler has ascended to the chancellorship of Germany and the Nazi Party dictatorship has begun. The story centers around Elena Standish, a young British photojournalist. The effects of WWI have weighed heavily on Elena and the Standish family. They are still trying to recover from the tremendous loss and grief they have suffered.
Elena is in Amalfi accompanied by her sister Margaret to cover an Economist convention. After becoming involved in a whirlwind romance with Ian Newton, a mysterious handsome strange, Elena is drawn into an espionage mission to prevent the planned assassination of one of the leaders in the Nazi Party in Berlin. Things go desperately wrong for Elena in Berlin, and she finds herself accused of murder. She is on the run and is desperate to find her way back to London. Who can she trust?
Along the way she witnesses first hand the fervor of the hatred and horror of the Nazi regime. During a public book burning of books written by Jews, political insurgents, and others not sanctioned by the Third Reich, she captures the essence of the Nazi madness in photographs of the event and manages to mail them to her beloved grandfather Lucas in London.
There are family secrets, betrayals and much intrigue to round out the story. A real page turner! Elena is a dynamic independent, brave and spunky character. I'm looking forward to reading more about her adventures in the next installment.

Well written. A great read! I enjoyed reading this book and would definately buy other works from this author. The WWI references and WWII setting made you feel like you were in that era. The story was complex enough to grab my attention and hold it. Thanks to netgalley, the author and the publisher for allowing me an advance copy of this book to review.

Anne Perry has started a new series about Elena Standish in 1930's Europe with Death in Focus. Elena is the daughter of a former English ambassador to Germany and a talented photographer. She is caught up in a plot to prevent the assassination of a German Nazi in which the British secret service would take the blame. Through betrayals and courage Elena survives being blamed for the assassination, but she must escape Germany. More twists than a corkscrew. Look forward to more stories in the series, but be sure to read this superb thriller.

I couldn't put this one down. I had the bad guy pegged from the beginning, but there were plenty of twists and turns to make the story engaging.

2.5 stars

You can read all of my reviews at https://www.NerdGirlLovesBooks.com.

Sigh. Let me start by saying that I've truly enjoyed reading several of the author's books in the Monk and Pitt series. So, when I was given the chance to read the first book in a new series, I jumped at the chance. Sadly, this book did not compare to the other book series I've read. Overall the story itself was interesting, but the book was so uneven I couldn't get into it.

The book is set in the early 1930's during the time in which Hitler built his power. The main character, Elena Standish, is a young woman that used to work for the Foreign Service Office but was ousted because she was involved in some sort of scandal. This topic is referenced in passing, but the author never goes into great detail about what exactly happened. Elena is now trying to work as a free-lance photographer while she recovers from the demise of her public service career. While vacationing in Italy she falls for a young man and decides to travel with him to Paris on her way home to England. A murder occurs on the train, forcing Elena to travel to Berlin to personally deliver a message that could have repercussions across Europe.

Elena acts inconsistently throughout the book and it irritated me. At times she's a young, heart-broken girl trying to pick up the pieces of her shattered life, and the next she's a skilled former foreign service agent trying to thwart an international conspiracy. Having the character bounce back and forth between these two personas was annoying.

While I enjoy historical fiction books, this one was pretty far-fetched and heavy handed. Large sections of the book felt like reading a history book rather than the author subtly weaving historical figures and events into the story line. When this happened, the momentum of the book stalled. I think better editing could have helped with this problem.

I like this author and will continue to read her other book series, but I'm not sure I would read another book in this particular book series.

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.