Buckingham Palace Gardens: A Novel($8.62Value)

Description

Anne Perry’s Charlotte and Thomas Pitt mysteries are perhaps the best loved of all her Victorian bestsellers, luring us into the multilayered richness of London, from the great mansions and secluded drawing rooms to the city’s festering slums. Now, in her most mesmerizing novel yet, she invites us to a house-party at Buckingham Palace. The Prince of Wales has asked four wealthy entrepreneurs and their wives to the palace to discuss a fantastic idea: the construction of a six-thousand-mile railroad that would stretch the full length of Africa. But, alas, the prince’s gathering proves disastrous when the mutilated body of a prostitute hired for a late-night frolic (after the wives have retired to bed) turns up among the queen’s monogrammed sheets in a palace linen closet. With great haste, Thomas Pitt, brilliant mainstay of Special Services, is summoned to resolve the crisis. The Pitts’ cockney maid, Gracie, is also recruited–to pose as a palace servant and listen in on the guests’ conversations, scan their bedrooms, and scrutinize their troubled faces for clues to hidden rivalries and attachments that could have lead to murder. If Pitt and Gracie fail to find out who brutally murdered the young woman–as seems increasingly likely–Pitt’s career will be over, and the scandal may just cause the monarchy to fall. With a cast of wonderful characters, among them the gentle Princess of Wales, and a twisting plot that takes us into the hidden world of the royal family, Anne Perry probes deeply the hearts of men and women ensnared by their own emotions. Never has this distinguished novelist told a story with more truth and passion. The venerable Queen Victoria remains on the British throne. Her son, the middlle-aged Prince of Wales, awaits the time to come for his occupancy of the throne. In the meantime, he fills his days—and nights—with wine, women, and song. One such evening explodes when, the next morning, in a linen closet in Buckingham Palace (the queen, fortunately, not in residence at the time) is discovered the bloody body of a prostitute who had been part of the previous evening’s entertainment, when the Prince of Wales hosted a gathering of businessmen to discuss a certain engineering project in which he was interested. Called in to quickly and discreetly get to the bottom of the murder is Inspector Pitt (a recurring Perry character), whose strategy includes installing the maid from his own household as an undercover employee in the palace. In a mystery novel, or any novel, with such a setting, it would have been easy for the author to trip over titles and protocol, but Perry has done her homework and does not stumble. --Brad Hooper Praise for Anne Perry and her Charlotte and Thomas Pitt novels Long Spoon Lane “Anne Perry has once again delivered the tasty concoction her readers have come to expect . . . and presents us with moral and political puzzles that are all too close to our own.” –Los Angeles Times Book Review “The clear parallels [Perry] draws to current political issues are persuasive–and chilling.” –The New York Times Book Review Seven Dials “Terrific, vivid stuff . . . The alarmingly prolific Anne Perry [is] a master of the genre.” –The Seattle Times “Perry’s as good as it gets. . . . The final courtroom scene produces more victims and left me breathless.” –The Providence Journal Anne Perry is the bestselling author of two acclaimed series set in Victorian England: the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt novels, including Seven Dials and Long Spoon Lane, and the William Monk novels, most recently The Shifting Tide and Dark Assassin. She is also the author of the World War I novels No Graves As Yet, Shoulder the Sky, Angels in the Gloom, At Some Disputed Barricade, and We Shall Not Sleep, as well as the holiday novels A Christmas Journey, A Christmas Visitor, A Christmas Guest, A Christmas Secret, and A Christmas Beginning. Anne Perry lives in Scotland. www.anneperry.net Chapter One She was apparently found in the linen cupboard, poor creature,” Narraway replied, his lean face dour, his eyes so dark they seemed black in the interior shadow of the hansom cab. Then, before Pitt could say anything further, he corrected himself. “One of the linen cupboards in Buckingham Palace. It was a particularly brutal murder.” The vehicle jerked forward, throwing Pitt back in the seat. “A prostitute?” he said incredulously. Narraway was silent for a moment. The horse’s hoofs clattered loudly, the carriage’s wheels rattling over the cobbles dangerously close to the pavement edge. “Surely that’s a bad joke!” he said at last as they swung around the corner into The Mall and picked up speed again. “Very bad,” Narraway agreed. “At least I hope so. But I fear it is perfectly serious. However, if Mr. Cahoon Dunkeld proves to be wasting our time exercising his sense of humor, I shall take great joy in personally putting him in jail—preferably one of our less pleasant ones.” “It has to be a joke,” Pitt said, shi