Bethlehem Road: A Charlotte and Thomas Pitt Novel (Charlotte & Thomas Pitt Novels)

Description

The gentleman tied to the lamppost on Westminster Bridge is most elegantly attired—fresh boutonniere, silk hat, white evening scarf—and he is quite, quite dead, as a result of his thoroughly cut throat. Why should anyone kill Sir Lockwood Hamilton, the kindest of family men and most conscientious member of Parliament? Before Inspector Thomas Pitt can even speculate on the reasons, a colleague of Sir Lockwood’s meets the same fate in the same spot. Public indignation is boundless, and clever Charlotte Pitt, Thomas’s wellborn wife, can’t resist helping her hard-pressed husband, scouting society’s drawing rooms for clues to these appalling crimes. Meanwhile, the Westminster Bridge Cutthroat stalks another victim.

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Acceptable Loss: A William Monk Novel

Description

“Give her a good murder and a shameful social evil,” The New York Times Book Review once declared, “and Anne Perry can write a Victorian mystery that would make Dickens’s eyes pop.” And Perry’s new William and Hester Monk story, a mesmerizing masterpiece of innocence and evil on London’s docks, outshines all her previous novels in this successful and beloved series.

When the body of a small-time crook named Mickey Parfitt washes up on the tide, no one grieves; far from it. But William Monk, commander of the River Police, is puzzled by the expensive silk cravat used to strangle Parfitt. How did this elegant scarf—whose original owner was obviously a man of substance—end up imbedded in the neck of a wharf rat who richly deserved his sordid end?

Dockside informers lead Monk to what may be a partial answer—a floating palace of corruption on the Thames managed by Parfitt, where a captive band of half-starved boys are forced to perform vile acts for men willing to pay a high price for midnight pleasures. Although Monk and his fearless wife, Hester, would prefer to pin a medal on Parfitt’s killer, duty leads them in another direction—to an unresolved crime from the past, to blackmail and more murder, and to a deadly confrontation with some of the empire’s most respected men.

To a superlative degree, Acceptable Loss provides colorful characters, a memorable portrait of waterfront life, and a story that achieves its most thrilling moments in a transfixed London courtroom, where Monk faces his old friend Oliver Rathbone in a trial of nearly unbearable tension—in sum, every delectable drop of the rich pleasure that readers expect from an Anne Perry novel.

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Treason at Lisson Grove: A Charlotte and Thomas Pitt Novel

Description

Anne Perry’s very special world of mystery, passion, and danger has attracted an entire generation of readers to her bestselling Victorian novels. Treason at Lisson Grove, her first Thomas and Charlotte Pitt novel in three years, is a masterpiece, inspired by history and spinning on a razor’s edge of tension, with a cast of characters as rich as the universe Perry evokes.  

The man who lies bleeding to death in a London brickyard is no ordinary drifter but a secret informant prepared to divulge details of a potentially devastating international plot against the British government. Special Branch officer Thomas Pitt, hastening to rendezvous with him, arrives a second too late, preceded by a knife-wielding assassin. As the mortally wounded man’s life slips away, so too does the information Pitt desperately needs. The killer in turn flees on an erratic course that leads Pitt in wild pursuit, from London’s cobblestone streets to picturesque St. Malo on the French coast.

Meanwhile, Pitt’s supervisor, the formidable Victor Narraway, finds himself accused of embezzling government funds. With Pitt incommunicado in France, Narraway turns to Pitt’s clever wife, Charlotte, for help. The man who badmouthed Narraway and ruined his career with innuendo can be found in Ireland—so Charlotte agrees to pose as Narraway’s sister and accompany him to Dublin to investigate.
 
But unknown to Pitt and Narraway, a shadowy plotter is setting a trap that, once sprung, could destroy not just reputations but the British empire itself.

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The William Monk Mysteries: The First Three Novels

Description

Few authors have made Victorian London as engaging and lively as Anne Perry has and her rich descriptions and charismatic characters have long captivated fans around the world. Now in one enticing volume, here are Anne Perry’s first three classic novels featuring private investigator William Monk.

THE FACE OF A STRANGER
His name, they tell him, is William Monk, and he is a London police detective. His memory vanished after a terrible accident, intent on hiding his condition and starting a new life, Monk tackles a grisly murder case in which each new revelation leads him to the answers he seeks but dreads to find. . . .

A DANGEROUS MOURNING
Called upon to investigate the brutal murder of a blue-blooded young widow, Monk is plagued by his lingering amnesia and an inept supervisor. But nurse Hester Latterly offers her assistance, and together they grope warily through the silence and shadows that obscure the aristocrat’s demise.

DEFEND AND BETRAY
After a brilliant military career, General Thaddeus Carlyon meets his death not on the battlefield but at a London dinner party, and his wife confesses to the murder. But Monk and Hester Latterly suspect deceit, and with the trial only days away, they feverishly work to unravel the dark heart of the mystery.

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Dorchester Terrace: A Charlotte and Thomas Pitt Novel

Description

Anne Perry’s acclaimed Charlotte and Thomas Pitt novels have made London’s exclusive world of wealth and power an addictive literary destination for readers everywhere. This new masterpiece, a haunting story of love and treason, invites us not only into the secret places of Britain’s power but also into the innermost sanctums of the fin de siècle Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Thomas Pitt, once a lowly policeman, is now the powerful head of Britain’s Special Branch, and some people fear that he may have been promoted beyond his abilities. He, too, feels painful moments of self-doubt, especially as rumors reach him of a plot to blow up connections on the Dover-London rail line—on which Austrian duke Alois Habsburg is soon to travel to visit his royal English kin.

Why would anyone destroy an entire train to kill one obscure Austrian royal, or are the rumors designed to distract Pitt from an even more devastating plot? He must resolve this riddle at once, before the damage is done.

Meanwhile, in a London sickroom, an old Italian woman—at the end of a romantic career as a revolutionary spy—is terrified that as she sinks into dementia, she may divulge secrets that can kill. And a beautiful young Croatian woman, married to a British power broker, hoards her own mysteries. Apparently all roads lead to the Continent, and Pitt suspects that between them these two fascinating women could tell him things he desperately needs to know. But as the hours tick by, it seems that the only woman Pitt can count on is his clever wife, Charlotte.

No one sustains mesmerizing suspense better than Anne Perry.  In Pitt’s trial by fire, his wrenching moral dilemma, and his electrifying moment of decision, the beloved bestselling author gives us a climax never to be forgotten.

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The Sins of the Wolf: A William Monk Novel (Mortalis)

Description

Nurse Hester Latterly finds herself well suited for the task: accompany Mrs. Mary Farraline, an elderly Scottish lady in delicate health, on a short train trip to London. Yet Hester’s simple job takes a grave turn when Mrs. Farraline dies during the night. And when a postmortem examination of the body reveals a lethal dose of medicine, Hester is charged with murder–punishable by execution.

This notorious case presents detective William Monk with a daunting task: find a calculating killer among the prominent and coolly unassailable Farraline clan–and try to save Hester from the gallows.

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