Traitors Gate [Large Print] [Hardcover]

Anne Perry (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1995

Someone in the Colonial Office is passing secrets to Germany about England’s strategy on Africa. While Police Superintendent Thomas Pitt investigates this matter of treason, he is quietly looking into the tragic death of his childhood mentor, Sir Arthur Desmond. Pitt believes that Sir Arthur was murdered, and that the crime is connected with the treachery in the government. And when the strangled body of an aristocratic society beauty is found floating near lonely Traitors Gate, Pitt and his clever wife, Charlotte, begin to see clearly the pattern of tragedy and frightening evil that Pitt must deal with, at the risk of his career—and his life.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Victorian socialites Thomas and Charlotte Pitt investigate the murders of two London aristocrats in this 15th installment in Perry's popular historical mystery series.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Recent revelations about Perry's past--as a young girl in Australia, she was convicted of killing her best friend's mother--will generate additional hype for her newest book, another entry in her popular Thomas and Charlotte Pitt mystery series. The book hit stores early--no doubt to capitalize on the "convicted murderess" brouhaha--and has been chosen as a Book-of-the-Month Club main selection. But Perry is not just some flash-in-the-pan writer whose publicists decided to take advantage of a media scoop. To fans of the historical mystery, she's one of the masters of the genre. Her latest story, set as usual in turn-of-the-century London, has Inspector Thomas Pitt and his wife, Charlotte, investigating the mysterious death of Thomas' mentor, Sir Arthur Desmond. The death has been ruled a suicide, but Sir Arthur's son is convinced his father was murdered for attempting to expose treason in the Colonial Office. Thomas and Charlotte begin to suspect that the nefarious Inner Circle, a group of highly influential but dangerously corrupt men, may be responsible for the killing. Perry's fascinating details of Victorian social customs, dress, language, politics, and behavior plus her usual engrossing plot virtually guarantee the success of another fine entry in an outstanding series. Emily Melton --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 666 pages
• Publisher: Thorndike Pr (June 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786204516
• ISBN-13: 978-0786204519
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.5 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,467,285 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Anne Perry is the bestselling author of two acclaimed series set in Victorian England: the William Monk novels, including Dark Assassin and The Shifting Tide, and the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt novels, including The Cater Street Hangman, Calandar Square, Buckingham Palace Gardens and Long Spoon Lane. She is also the author of the World War I novels No Graves As Yet, Shoulder the Sky, Angels in the Gloom, At Some Disputed Barricade, and We Shall Not Sleep, as well as six holiday novels, most recently A Christmas Grace. Anne Perry lives in Scotland.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Middling entry in long-running series, August 29, 2000

By 

Richard R. Horton (Webster Groves, MO United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Traitors Gate (Mass Market Paperback)

This is a fairly late installment in Anne Perry`s long series of mystery novels set in late Victorian England (1890, in the present case.) These novels feature Charlotte and Thomas Pitt, he a policeman (just promoted to Superindent), and she an upper-class woman who married shockingly beneath herself, but who maintains a limited entree to society, useful in helping Thomas with cases involving crimes among the upper class.

Traitor`s Gate features Thomas much more prominently than Charlotte. Thomas` surrogate father, Sir Arthur Desmond, the owner of the estate for which Thomas` actual father was the gamekeeper, has died in his club in London. The death is ruled accidental, or suicide, but his son Matthew, Thomas` close boyhood friend, is convinced it must have been murder, and asks Thomas to investigate.

Thomas is unable to officially investigate Desmond`s death, but rather fortuitously he is asked to investigate a case of missing information at the Colonial Office, to do with Africa and with British support for Cecil Rhodes. As it turns out, Arthur Desmond, formerly employed in the Foreign Office, had just prior to his death been making "wild" accusations of abuse of power in the government support of Rhodes. Naturally, Desmond`s death and the missing information are linked, and, more importantly, both are linked to the mysterious organization Thomas has run afoul of in previous books, The Inner Circle.

As Pitt`s investigations continue, his own life and Matthew`s are threatened, another murder is committed, and finally Pitt`s discoveries trigger a chain reaction of suicides and murders, ending somewhat in medias res with Pitt apparently ready to openly take on the Inner Circle.

The story is entertaining, and the solutions to the crimes are reasonably clever and interesting. However I don`t rank this as highly as the best books in the series for a few reasons. The Inner Circle has become non-credible to me, in its villainy, and its apparent size and power, not to say the incompetence of such a powerful organization in dealing with such a minor figure as Pitt. Pitt`s solutions to the crimes take on the all-too-familiar form of confronting the criminal with the (often rather sparse) evidence of his wrongdoing, upon which he either confesses or commits suicide. The device of having Pitt assigned to investigate a case of espionage is rather unconvincing. Also, the key crime of the book (the second murder) is not only difficult to credit as far as motive is concerned, but is committed in a foolish manner which seems calculated to ultimately draw attention to the murderer (indeed Thomas is misled rather more than I think he should be).

Finally, a key element of the enjoyment of this series is the ongoing stories of the advancing social life of the continuing characters. The books generally feature a love story or two, and this is no exception, but I didn`t find the love stories very involving. And as I said, Charlotte`s role in this book is minor, which is understandable for this book, but something of a drawback nonetheless.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Less is More, June 4, 2003

By 

C. Schmidt (Washington, DC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Traitors Gate (Mass Market Paperback)

Fine book for fans with an interesting look into Thomas's life before London, but not one I would recommend for someone new to the series. Too many characters and a complicated (and boring) plot about the exploitation of Africa by Europeans. I had a hard time sticking to it and I don't usually struggle to get through Perry's work. Really not one of her best.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An undemanding romp through Victorian society, December 24, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Traitors Gate (Mass Market Paperback)

This is a late entry in the author's Thomas and Charlotte Pitt series and is best appreciated by longtime fans, who will enjoy meeting familiar faces enough to forgive the dullish plotting. Newer readers will be charmed by Perry's vivid characters and her knack of contrasting their real selves with the requirements of Victorian society -- but the dramatic tension this usually generates is missing here, except in a couple of scenes near the end. A fun read, but not an involving one.