Buckingham Palace Gardens
Mon., August 18, 01:19 PM
The absolute best thing about public libraries is that I can borrow a book to read without paying for it. My mindset in going through a pile of books is entirely different if it will cost me $20. Nevertheless, I would make an exception for Anne Perry. Fortunately, I found Buckingham Palace Gardens at the bookmobile.
After more than twenty Charlotte and Thomas Pitt novels, the twenty-fifth is still extraordinary. Unlike so many mystery series, this one finds new ground and doesn’t read like a rehash of older ones. We have come to the end of the nineteenth century, very near the end of Queen Victoria’s reign.
Pitt is now working with the Special Branch, having lost his position as a police superintendent. The police may not want him, but Mr. Narraway of Special Branch knows that Pitt is the best investigator he can get. It is only hinted that his transgression concerned the “Whitechapel matter,” which we here know as the Jack the Ripper murders. As I remember that episode, there was a connection to the Prince of Wales, which made it sensitive enough to cause Pitt’s removal.
Once again, murder is touching on the royal family, for a body has actually been found in the palace. The Queen, fortunately, is not in residence, but the Prince and Princess of Wales are hosting several couples concerned with a huge business undertaking. Since they are all acquainted with each other, it is not surprising that a certain intrigue becomes apparent.
It’s very puzzling, very mysterious and entangled. Once again, Pitt has to grit his teeth and endure insults from people of a “better class,” as he asks the questions he must. Here we have a picture not just of society, but of royal society. The one thing of which we are certain is that there is no residence in London that is more secure.
Good historical novels always send me to reference materials — and I always come out ahead. I knew that Edward VII had been Prince of Wales for a very long time (around sixty years, I found) and that his mother had not allowed him much of a role in the running of “the family business.” I always considered him pretty much of a lightweight, and his reign was only about nine years. He is portrayed in this novel as fairly intelligent, if something of a playboy. Evidently he is known for several notable accomplishments in the arts and, to a limited extent, in diplomacy.
Naturally, Pitt unsnarls all the tangles, sees that justice will prevail and — despite all that, will not be remembered fondly by the Prince. Oh, well. There’s material for another story.
