Anne Perry: Buckingham Palace Gardens (USA 2009)

From the Publisher:
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.

Anne Perry: Buckingham Palace Gardens. A Charlotte and Thomas Pitt Novel. Random House, ISBN: 9780345469328 (March, 2009), 400 p., $6.99

Anne Perry: Buckingham Palace Gardens (UK 2009)

From the Publisher:
In the latest compelling book in Anne Perry's bestselling Pitt series, Inspector Thomas Pitt must navigate the upper echelons of society if he is to find a murderer bold enough to kill in Buckingham Palace. Early one morning, Inspector Thomas Pitt is awoken by a message from his boss, Narraway. A maid has been murdered. The maid worked at Buckingham Palace and Narraway needs his must trusted man to deal with the investigation. The suspects are narrowed down to a group of guests, meeting with the Prince of Wales to discuss the funding for a huge project: the Cape to Cairo railway. If the murderer isn't found, the Queen will veto royal support for the scheme. It rests with Pitt to solve the murder - in doing so he must reconcile his own concept of justice with those who feel it is within their right to make their own laws, whatever the consequences.

Anne Perry: Buckingham Palace Gardens. An Inspector Thomas Pitt Novel. Headline, ISBN: 9780755348930 (February, 2009), 480 p., £6.99

Anne Perry: Buckingham Palace Gardens (UK 2008)

From the Publisher:
In the seventh compelling book in Anne Perry's bestselling Pitt series, Inspector Thomas Pitt must navigate the upper echelons of society if he is to find a murderer bold enough to kill in Buckingham Palace. Early one morning, Inspector Thomas Pitt is awoken by a message from his boss, Narraway. A maid has been murdered. Only when Pitt focuses does he realise the import of what he is being told. The maid worked at Buckingham Palace and Narraway needs his most trusted man to deal with the investigation. The suspects are narrowed down to a group of guests, meeting with the Prince of Wales to discuss the funding for a huge project: the Cape to Cairo railway. The Prince might overlook the unfortunate loss of a maid but the same cannot be said of the Queen, whose return is imminent. If the murderer isn't found, the Queen will veto royal support for the scheme. It rests with Pitt to solve the murder - in doing so he must reconcile his own concept of justice with those who feel it is within their right to make their own laws, whatever the consequences.

Anne Perry: Buckingham Palace Gardens. A Thomas Pitt Novel. Headline, ISBN: 0755320603 (April, 2008), 320 p., £19.99

Anne Perry: Buckingham Palace Gardens (USA 2008)

From the Publisher:
It is late one night in Buckingham Palace, and Queen Victoria's eldest son, affectionately known as Bertie, has been up to his usual pranks. The aging Prince of Wales, who, like our own Prince Charles, has been waiting all his life to inherit the throne from Mummy, has spent a typically debauched evening with some male cronies, topping off hours of drinking by inviting a few prostitutes into the Palace. Nothing unusual about that, except that this time, one of the women is found the next morning in the linen cupboard - not sleeping, but slashed and very dead, having bled all over Victoria's monogrammed sheets.

Terrified that word might leak out and cause a highly embarrassing scandal, the Palace calls on Thomas Pitt of the Special Branch to solve the murder, quickly and discreetly. The problem is, there is a surfeit of suspects. Sleeping over at the Palace the night of the murder were not only Bertie's male cronies, but their wives and personal servants. And as if this weren't enough, Pitt's investigation is further complicated by the special connection that the Prince and his male comrades share: the secret planning of a Cape Town to Cairo railroad that will span the African continent and insure the hegemony of the British Empire. The builders of this railroad are set to make a lot of money, so hidden rivalries among the players run deep. Deep enough to lead to murder? Perhaps, but Pitt must figure out the connection between the Prince of Wales, his railroad cronies, and a murdered prostitute. His intuitions are brilliant but no one in the Palace is helping him, and if word of the murder leaks out, Pitt will take the fall.

Anne Perry: Buckingham Palace Gardens. A Novel. Ballantine Books, ISBN: 0345469313 (March, 2008), 320 p., $26.00