Traitor's Gate, Anne Perry
The Book
Superintendent Pitt is visited by his old friend Matthew Desmond, who delivers extremely bad news. His father, Sir Arthur Desmond, has died. The police are saying he was senile and drank laudanum with whiskey, but Matthew believes Sir Arthur was murdered by the Inner Circle. Pitt knowing the inner workings of this dangerous group, is inclined to believe Matthew, despite the fact they haven't seen each other in 15 years. Much has happened since they grew up together on Sir Arthur's estate.
Matthew is now a senior official in the Foreign Office, and important information has made it's way into the hands of the Germans. There is a traitor among his staff or that of the Colonial Office. Matthew calls in a second favor to get Pitt to personally investigate the matter. Pitt accepts.
The machinations of the Inner Circle make Sir Arthur look like a fool, and the traitor is wily, evading Pitt's detection. With Pitt's boss, Commissioner Farnsworth both breathing down his neck and applying Inner Circle pressure, Pitt has little success. Then, the stakes get raised yet again, when the wife of one of the suspects, an eccentric woman who believed Sir Arthur is murdered. Pitt must now both solve the murder Sir Arthur and find the traitor, before things really get out of hand, or worse Pitt's most contentious underling, Tellman looses all respect for him.
My Thoughts
For a hot minute in this book it looks like Anne Perry is going to bring back the strong willed and respectable Micah Drummond, but she doesn't. I suppose there is no way to tell if the scene he was in was cut from the book or not, but it does seem like he should have been in it. However, I can understand why it wasn't included, if such a scene ever existed. Nevertheless, I missed him. Farnsworth and Tellman do a nice squeeze on Pitt. Tellman, because he's envious of Pitt's position, despite being to closed minded to do the Superintendent job well, is all but subordinate. Pitt has his work cut out for him managing a smart man like that. And Farnsworth, because he means well, but has been well connected his entire life.. He sees nothing wrong with the Inner Circle. A man with so few morals and loads of power is dangerous. And given he has the power to fire Pitt, it does give us some cause to worry for Pitt.
We get to see Great Aunt Vespasia and see Charlotte hold her own at a reception given by an eminent duchess. It's a heady to be sure. And Perry has clearly at some point or another, most likely when she was a child, been very near this type of event. I recognize the mixture of boredom an mingling at a political event from my own circulating on what passes for a social scene in my tiny town.
The narrative is tight, and here we see the Pitt universe begin to turn. Pitt is going more into the world of spies and national security. The new position gives Pitt an excuse to be there, and the social connections to have Charlotte circulate. For once Emily is absent, and we are not reliant on her to do all of the socializing.
And we continue to see characters from past stories float in and out of the narrative, giving a continuity to the timeline which few authors worry about.
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