BUCKINGHAM PALACE GARDENS

Author: Anne Perry ISBN: 9780345469311 4/2008 HISTORICAL SUSPENSE Publisher: BALLANTINE
Time Period: Victorian

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.

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

I was first introduced to the writings of Anne Perry not through her books, but several years ago when I caught a PBS movie based upon one of her books, The Cater Street Hangman. It was where I first met Inspector Thomas Pitt and Charlotte, his soon-to-be-wife, and immediately fell in love. The Victorian atmosphere, the suspense, but most of all the way Ms. Perry illuminated the class and societal differences of England during this period, made it a truly spellbinding movie to watch. Well that, and the fact that the villain who is revealed in the end I never saw coming.

So, it was with great anticipation that I dove into BUCKINGHAM PALACE GARDENS. I was anxious to see how Anne Perry would immerse me as a reader into the characters and inner workings of England's Victorian royalty (including the rarely featured Princess of Wales), plus I wanted to see how far Thomas and Charlotte had come from when I first met them so long ago. Ms. Perry delivered brilliantly on the first, but disappointed me on the second. It's not her fault, really, since Thomas Pitt now works for the Special Branch and that means that Charlotte can no longer help him with his criminal investigations. But as someone who loved the pairing of these two, for me, it left this book a little bit wanting.

As to the suspense and whodunit part of the story, it was pretty obvious as to who the culprit was. However, the discovery of exactly how the villain pulled it off, and what his motives for doing so truly were, came as a bit of a surprise, making BUCKINGHAM PALACE GARDENS a much more absorbing read in its second half than it is in the first.

While I much prefer the earlier Pitt books in this wonderful series, BUCKINGHAM PALACE GARDENS is still a very good, suspenseful read, especially if you are an aficionado of Victorian and turn-of-the-century reads.

Nancy Davis