Anne Perrys 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 citys 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 princes 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 queens 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 recruitedto 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 womanas seems increasingly likelyPitts 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.
Anne Perry desentra#a en estas p#ginas el pasado del investigador William Monk, dando vida a la Inglaterra victoriana y a una sociedad plagada de oscuros secretos. Para las prostitutas de Leather Lane, la enfermera Hester Monk es la #nica tabla de salvaci#n. Adem#s de velar por su salud, les ofrece apoyo moral cuando el violento clima del barrio se ve agravado con un asesinato: el del magnate Nolan Baltimore en un burdel. Al mismo tiempo, el investigador William Monk, esposo de Hester, recibe la visita de una misteriosa y bella mujer que sospecha que tras el homicidio se halla un fraude de grandes dimensiones. A medida que Monk se sumerge en el caso, afloran a su memoria recuerdos que cre#a relegados al olvido y cuya presencia lo empuja a una situaci#n l#mite.
