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    Buckingham Palace Gardens
    Buckingham Palace Gardens
    Buckingham Palace Gardens
    Audiobook13 hours

    Buckingham Palace Gardens

    Written by Anne Perry

    Narrated by Jenny Sterlin

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    The Prince of Wales has asked four wealthy entrepreneurs and their wives to Buckingham Palace to discuss a fantastic idea: the construction of a six-thousand-mile railroad that would stretch the full length of Africa. But the prince's gathering proves disastrous when the mutilated body of a prostitute turns up in a linen closet among the queen's monogrammed sheets. With great haste, Thomas Pitt, the 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. If Pitt and Gracie fail to find out who brutally murdered the young woman, Pitt's career will be over, and the scandal may just cause the monarchy to fall.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateNov 21, 2014
    ISBN9781490639512
    Buckingham Palace Gardens
    Author

    Anne Perry

    With twenty million books in print, ANNE PERRY's was selected by The Times as one of the twentieth century's '100 Masters of Crime', for more information about Anne and her books, visit: www.anneperry.co.uk

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    Reviews for Buckingham Palace Gardens

    4/5

    181 ratings19 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Intricate story that took a little too long to tell. Thomas Pitt endures insults and rage to uncover a sinister plot in Buckingham Palace with the assistance of his housemaid Gracie. Perry does her usual yeoman job of giving us a slice of life in 19th century England. She does a particularly nice job of showing the void between the different social classes and how they see each other.
    • 3/5
      enjoyable but don't feel the need/desire to mainline all Anne Perry now.
    • 2/5
      The character, Charlotte Pitt, is becoming increasingly more annoying and meddlesome. I will not be reading anymore of the Pitt books, as I cannot stand the thought of reading about anymore of Charlotte's stupidity
    • 4/5
      It's been a long time since I had read an Anne Perry book. Not sure why except that there are so many other books I also want to read. Anyway, my friend gave me a box of books that included this Charlotte and Thomas Pitt novel. Good to read more about this delightful couple in mid-19th century England.The characters are the best part of this novel which unfortunately drags in spots due to all of the characters' eternal, internal going over and over the possibility of others having committed the murder and/or the affair that apparently led to the murder. Thomas' investigation goes on slowly, but the interesting part of it is that the prime suspect in the murder is his former brother-in-law, a man Charlotte had been infatuated with until he married her sister. The sister died many years earlier and Dominic disappeared afterward until suddenly appearing as a minister in the house of his Church of England mentor where the murder takes place. Thomas still has ulterior motives in seeking evidence that Dominic is the killer.The twists at the end of the story took me by surprise; I had things sort of backwards and I suspected the wrong person. Reading Anne Perry again was great fun, even through the lengthy musings, because the characters were so unique. I think I'll have to throw out my copy of this paperback because it's falling apart, but that tells me I'm only the latest of many readers to enjoy this book. I recommend it to historical mystery fans.
    • 2/5
      I just couldn't get into this story. The style of writing is not for me. I read partway into the story and then moved on.
    • 4/5
      This is my first Anne Perry book. By and large, the women in it are better---kinder, wiser---than the men. Although the story is a third-person narrative, the author gives us the inner thoughts of Thomas Pitt, the detective who is now part of Special Branch; Gracie, his servant who goes undercover to work in Buckingham Palace; Elsa Dunkeld, the wife of a man who wants to head up a project to build a Cape-to-Cairo railroad in Africa; and Narraway, Pitt's boss. Gracie uncovers vital clues, but, while she recognizes them as vital clues, her discoveries require too much luck. There are lots of descriptions of clothing, especially gowns. The names are surprisingly strange. Unlike an Agatha Christie mystery, removing the killers and one of the victims from society and world makes life better and simpler for everyone else.A quote: "He was a good-looking man with an intelligent and sensual face. He dressed well, but without that effortless elegance of a man who, once having understood fashion, can follow it or ignore it as he pleases." (p. 88)
    • 3/5
      I have read several of these Thomas and Charlotte Pitt novels before (as well as other Anne Perry) and generally enjoyed them. I believe this was the first in this series, and while I also enjoyed this one, I am glad to say that later volumes are more closely edited and less ponderous than this seemed at times. This story was somewhat unusual for the high profile role given to the Pitt's maid, Gracie, who shines throughout.
    • 4/5
      Why haven't I read Anne Perry's Charlotte and Thomas Pitt books before? Victorian era mysteries, right in (one of my) sweet spots. I'm told that it's better to read the series in sequence to see how the relationships develop, but I think I had enough fun reading this that I don't mind reading out of order.
      The way it started, with a prostitute gorily murdered in Buckingham Palace, gave me a rather persistent thought of "London... SVU?" which I had trouble shaking over the first couple of chapters. But that's more a commentary on myself than it is on the quality of the book.

      The thing that impressed me most was the way the investigation and the interrogation got bound and constrained by social niceties of status and of how different classes were allowed to interact. Perry switched perspectives in different chapters, enough so that I could really see the discrepancy between characters' interior lives and the constrained way they behaved towards each other, navigating the social sphere in a series of calculations of how much to say to whom, when. I don't think I've seen that captured quite so well in other Victorian era historicals I've read. I think I have, for the first time, in years of reading Victorian era historical mysteries, an understanding of just the sheer painful stiltedness and constraints of having to conduct a murder investigation in a society bent on keeping up rigid social structures. I enjoyed a few moments where investigators were trying to shield women, or servants from what was going on, only to be dumbfounded by what people already knew.

      Definitely going to read as many more books in this series as I can.
    • 4/5
      The satisfying thing about Anne Perry's books is her sense of character and the nuances of class during the 19th century British period she covers. I tend to prefer the Monk novels to the Pitt ones, simply because I like Monk's complicated character, but this one gives Gracie, the Pitt's maid, a chance to shine.
    • 4/5
      As always, Perry tells a good story while recreating Victorian England, especially the class differences.
    • 2/5
      I’ve read this series about Inspector Pitt and his wife Charlotte since the beginning because I’m interested in Victorian London and because they’ve always come to a spectacular end, usually with the most powerful/power hungry person guilty of the most heinous crime. The crimes usually have a sexual element and always involve the rich victimizing the poor. The stakes for Pitt are always extremely high. The writing isn’t spectacular and the plotting is often awkward, with fairly obvious clues artificially planted. But this may be my last. This time the guilty one was obvious from very early on, though I must admit the ending was up to Perry's usual standard. I spent a lot of time wishing, though, they’d had fingerprint and DNA analysis, making the detective work easier. Charlotte was missing completely from this one. Aunt Vespasia was only in one scene. The maid, Gracie, helped Pitt by disguising herself as a maid in Buckingham Palace where there had been a murder—a body in the linen closed and blood on the Queen’s monogrammed sheets while Her Majesty is out of town.
    • 4/5
      There's been a murder at the the Palace and Special Branch and Thomas Pitt have been called to solve it discreetly. He asks, Gracie, his own housemaid to help by infiltrating the staff to learn what she can. He encounters many insults from the supposedly upper class before solving the murders with the help of Gracie.
    • 3/5
      While I couldn't put this one down, I did think the situation as a bit contrived. I wanted to go do some research on Buckingham Palace and see if Perry got all of her facts right. But as murder mysteries go, this was top notch. A great cast of characters, an intriguing mystery, real historical characters mixed with fictional ones. I have only read one other Anne Perry mystery, and this one left me wanting to read more.
    • 3/5
      Another Charlotte and Thomas Pitt novel about murder in the palace.```
    • 4/5
      Starts rather cumbrously by having to introduce Pitt into the Buckingham Palalace world to solve the murder of a prostitute during one of the Prince of Wales' "nights with the boys" Anne Perry's insights into rythyms, nuances, and inequalities of gender and class in the Victorian world combine with a complex plot to make this an interesting book. The inroduction of Gracie an an undercover "agent" provides Pitt with one of his familiars to assist and discuss. The ending is complex but reasonable with the bad guys exposed and punishments pending.
    • 3/5
      A good outing from Anne Perry, although I found Pitt rather slow to accept what might be going on in this one. Gracie the maid gets a good role and works exceedingly hard to help Pitt solve some gruesome mysteries. I usually enjoy the delicacies of Victorian conversation that Anne Perry is so good at, but without Charlotte, the book lost some of the glow for me.
    • 4/5
      To begin with, having read most of her books, I must admit Anne Perry is one of my favorite authors. Buckingham Palace Gardens is the latest of the Thomas and Charlotte Pitt late Victorian detective series. Thomas, once a police superintendent, continues in his role at Special Branch investigating treason and crimes against the Crown. I found this book a bit different from others in the series, in that except for a brief appearance early on Charlotte was only mentioned in Thomas’ thoughts. In an unusual twist, the Pitt’s maid Gracie is asked to assist Special Branch with the investigation at Buckingham Palace, which she does with her usual aplomb. I missed Charlotte, Aunt Vespesia, and Emily, all of whom had minor parts. Pitt was more in the forefront than in other books in the series. I also noticed more byplay between the other characters outside of the interview process. I found the book to be more complex than others in the series with multiple plot twists. I enjoyed the book and recommend it with the caveat that it is a bit different from other Pitt Mysteries.
    • 5/5
      I love Anne Perry books or at least the Thomas Pitt and William Monk ones. I am so glad she is finally back to writing them. Most of what I know about Victorian times comes from reading non fiction and Anne Perry. These books are steeped in the period and absolutely wonderful mysteries. They are not your conventional mystery either. You may not like the way some of them end but you won't be able to stop reading them once started. She has the knack of pulling you in completely into that era. Thomas Pitt and William Monk are completely different characters as well. Thomas is easy to love. He is the first rate detective in a gawky body married to a woman of a higher class. Charlotte is a delightful woman and one who took a great risk for her time in marrying "beneath" her. I can't wait to have this new book. and I can easily rate this at the top because Perry never, ever disappoints.
    • 4/5
      Her earlier books were the best. Lately, as of 2007, she seems to be losing steam. Her books are getting more preachy.