BONUS: This edition contains excerpts from Anne Perry's Treason at Lisson Grove and Execution Dock. When the distinguished Mr. Justice Stafford dies of opium poisoning, his shocking demise resurrects one of the most sensational cases ever to inflame England: the murder five years before of Kingsley Blaine, whose body was found crucified in Farriers’ Lane. Amid the public hysteria for revenge, the police had arrested a Jewish actor who was soon condemned to hang. Police Inspector Thomas Pitt, investigating Stafford’s death, is drawn into the Farriers’ Lane murder as well, for it appears that Stafford may have been about to reopen the case. Pitt receives curiously little help from his colleagues on the force, but his wife, Charlotte, gleans from her social engagements startling insights into both cases. And slowly both Thomas and Charlotte begin to reach for the same sinister and deeply dangerous truth.

When the distinguished Mr. Justice Stafford dies of opium poisoning, his shocking demise resurrects one of the most sensational cases ever to inflame England: the murder five years before of Kingsley Blaine, whose body was found crucified in Farriers’ Lane. Amid the public hysteria for revenge, the police had arrested a Jewish actor who was soon condemned to hang. Police Inspector Thomas Pitt, investigating Stafford’s death, is drawn into the Farriers’ Lane murder as well, for it appears that Stafford may have been about to reopen the case. Pitt receives curiously little help from his colleagues on the force, but his wife, Charlotte, gleans from her social engagements startling insights into both cases. And slowly both Thomas and Charlotte begin to reach for the same sinister and deeply dangerous truth.

"Acclaimed literary biographer Joanne Drayton was given unparalleled access to Anne Perry, her friends, relatives, colleagues, and archives to complete this book. She intersperses the story of her life with an examination of her writing, drawing parallels between Perry's own experiences and her characters and storylines. The Search for Anne Perry is a gripping account of a life, and provides understanding of the girl Anne was, the adult she became, her compulsion to write, and her view of the world"--

“[Anne] Perry has once again delivered the tasty concoction her readers have come to expect . . . and presents us with moral and political puzzles that are all too close to our own.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review After bombs explode during an anarchist attack in Long Spoon Lane, two of the culprits are captured and the leader is shot . . . but by whom? As Thomas Pitt of the Special Branch delves into the case, he finds that there’s more to the terrorism than the brutality of misguided idealists. Clues suggest that Inspector Wetron is the mastermind. As the shadowy leader of the Inner Circle, Wetron is using his influence with the press to stir up fears of more attacks and to rush a bill through Parliament that would severely curtail civil liberties. To defeat Wetron, Pitt must run in harness with his old enemy, Sir Charles Voisey. The unlikely allies are joined by Pitt’s clever wife, Charlotte, and her great aunt, Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould. As they strive to prevent future destruction, nothing less than the fate of the British Empire hangs in precarious balance.

In a Victorian-era London beset by anarchists, detective Thomas Pitt investigates the mysterious death of Magnus Landsborough, the son of aristocrat Lord Sheridan Landsborough, during a violent gun battle between police and rioters.

The gentleman tied to the lamppost on Westminster Bridge is most elegantly attired—fresh boutonniere, silk hat, white evening scarf—and he is quite, quite dead, as a result of his thoroughly cut throat. Why should anyone kill Sir Lockwood Hamilton, the kindest of family men and most conscientious member of Parliament? Before Inspector Thomas Pitt can even speculate on the reasons, a colleague of Sir Lockwood’s meets the same fate in the same spot. Public indignation is boundless, and clever Charlotte Pitt, Thomas’s wellborn wife, can’t resist helping her hard-pressed husband, scouting society’s drawing rooms for clues to these appalling crimes. Meanwhile, the Westminster Bridge Cutthroat stalks another victim.