When Inspector Thomas Pitt is asked to reopen a three-year-old murder case that had taken place in London’s luxurious Hanover Close, he is all too aware that his superiors want him to simply smooth things over. But penetrating the reserve of high society households will take more finesse than Pitt can muster. Enter Charlotte Pitt, his wellborn wife, and her sister, Emily. As the social equals of the inhabitants of the Close, the women are privy to conversations that would never reach the ears of a mere policeman. What they find is a secret so shocking it will lead to more deaths—including, quite possibly, Pitt’s own.

Inspector Pitt tales charge of the investigation into the three-year-old murder of Robert York, killed in his home in Hanover Close, the apparent victim of a burgler, in a mystery set against the backdrop of Victorian London

Inspector Thomas Pitt's wife Charlotte helps her husband scout society's drawing rooms for clues to the appalling murders of Sir Lockwood Hamilton and his colleague.

In the posh London street of Paragon Walk, an unspeakable crime is committed: A young woman is brutally raped and murdered. Once again, that incomparable team of sleuths Inspector Thomas Pitt and his young wife, Charlotte, set themselves against a vicious murderer. As the elegant masks of the wellborn suspects slip, it becomes appallingly clear that something ugly lurks behind the handsome façades of Paragon Walk–something that may lead to more scandal, and more murder.

Lorsque ses supérieurs lui demandent de rouvrir le dossier d'un meurtre survenu trois ans auparavant dans le somptueux quartier de Hanover Close, Thomas Pitt sait qu'il lui faudra faire preuve de doigté. Mais s'introduire dans la haute société demande plus de finesse que Pitt ne peut en avoir. C'est alors que Charlotte et sa sœur Emily entrent en scène. Elles-mêmes issues de la bonne société, les deux jeunes femmes peuvent entendre des conversations qui n'arriveraient jamais aux oreilles d'un simple policier. Et ce qu'elles vont découvrir pourrait entraîner de nouveaux meurtres - et peut-être même celui de Pitt. Une fois encore, Anne Perry nous introduit dans les recoins et les mystères de l'Angleterre victorienne. Avec un talent qui n'exclut pas une certaine perversité.

When the womanizing aristocrat George March is found dead over his morning coffee, the immediate concern of his shocked Cardington Crescent household is quieting the scandal as discreetly—and quickly—as possible. Unfortunately for March’s wife, Emily, that means accusing her of the murder. But the family does not take into account Emily’s beloved sister, who is none other than the indomitable Charlotte Pitt. Together, Charlotte and her husband, police inspector Thomas Pitt, take on the seemingly irreproachable, upper-crust March clan and uncover an insidious web of corruption and depravity that leads them from the elegant Crescent town house to the hideous London slums, and from genteel society to murder—again.

When a group of powerful Irish Protestants and Catholics gather at a country house to discuss Irish home rule, contention is to be expected. But when the meeting’s moderator, government bigwig Ainsley Greville, is found murdered in his bath, negotiations seem doomed. Unless Superintendent Thomas Pitt and his wife, Charlotte, can root out the truth, simmering hatreds and passions may again explode in murder.

From a New York Times–bestselling author, Charlotte and Thomas Pitt must solve the case of a young gentleman’s sordid murder—before an innocent man hangs. The naked body of an aristocratic youth turns up in the sewers beneath Bluegate Fields, one of London’s most notorious slums. But Arthur Waybourne had been drowned in his bath, not in the Thames. More shocking still was that the boy had been sexually violated and infected with syphilis before he was murdered. Despite Inspector Thomas Pitt’s efforts to fully investigate the crime, the family closes ranks, stonewalling Pitt, leaving him to wonder what they are hiding. All evidence points to Arthur’s tutor, Jerome, as the murderer. The courts agree and Jerome is sentenced to hang. Pitt and his wife, Charlotte, don’t believe the answer is so simple. But if not Jerome, then who molested and infected the boy? To learn the truth, Charlotte uses her familiarity with the upper classes to draw aside the curtain of lies, while Pitt defies his superior and the boy’s family to follow a trail that leads him into the foulest streets of London through a web of deceit involving male prostitution and pedophilia. In a race against time, Thomas and Charlotte must find the real killer to save Jerome from the hangman’s noose.