The Whitechapel Conspiracy
by Anne Perry
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Book Summary Information
Author: Anne PerryEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2002-01-29
ISBN: 0449006565
Number of pages: 352
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Book Reviews of The Whitechapel Conspiracy
Book Review: An exciting historical political thriller (plus a dash of romance)!
Summary: 4 Stars
In the course of investigating a death that most considered accidental, Thomas Pitt, Superintendent of the Bow Street Station, compiles a package of damning circumstantial evidence that sends John Adinett to the gallows for the murder of his friend, Martin Fetters - traveler, antiquarian, and a vocal anti-royalist with strong republican sentiments. While the evidence leaves no question in the minds of the jurors as to guilt, Pitt can see no reason why Adinett would have murdered his long-time friend and is unsatisfied with the results of his investigation. Adinett's cronies, members of a shadowy cabal known as the "Inner Circle" whose secret membership and pledge of loyalty to one another includes men from the highest level of English society exact a swift, brutal revenge on Pitt for Adinett's execution. He is removed from his command in Bow Street Station and exiled to an undercover operation with the Special Branch in Spitalfields, a grimy London slum, looking for elusive evidence of the operations of anarchists.
Pitt is forced to live away from his family. In order to clear his name, to prove him right and to allow Pitt to return to hearth and home, his canny, strong minded, and very feminine wife, Charlotte, their tough cockney maid, Gracie, her beau, Sergeant Tellman, and their aunt, Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould, seek out the mysterious missing motive for Fetters' murder. They uncover a frightening Inner Circle conspiracy to foment violent revolution in working class England, destroy the monarchy and replace the existing government with a republic, a senate and a president. While every reader will have no doubt the climax of the story will wrap up Charlotte's and Thomas' separate investigations neatly into a single conclusion, Perry has pulled a real rabbit out of her hat by tying the Inner Circle's nefarious revolutionary ideas into the gruesome Whitechapel Ripper killings with an exciting and novel re-interpretation of the long-standing theory that Jack was a member of the Royal family.
Less focused on Victorian atmosphere and scenery than usual, Perry has used The Whitechapel Conspiracy to concentrate on development of her key characters. The relationship between Gracie and Tellman, in particular, is heartwarming and no reader will fail to cheer them on as they come to the realization that they care for one another deeply but remain uncertain as to how to act on their growing affection for one another. The plot, a realistic believable political thriller, is cleverly drawn on the real life Victorian working man's disgust with Prince Albert's profligate spending habits and dissolute lifestyle and the increasing distance and isolation between Queen Victoria and her subjects. The labyrinthine twists and turns that finally disclose the identity of the bad guys in the Inner Circle but leave the identity of the Ripper a continuing mystery are ingenious and surprising without being forced or contrived.
Perry has produced another winner that will thrill Thomas and Charlotte's legion of followers.
Summary of The Whitechapel Conspiracy
THE WHITECHAPEL CONSPIRACY is ?a beauty, brilliantly presented, ingeniously developed and packed with political implications that reverberate on every level of British society.??The New York Times Book Review
In 1892, the grisly murders of Whitechapel prostitutes by a killer dubbed Jack the Ripper remain a terrifying enigma. And in a packed Old Bailey courtroom, Superintendent Thomas Pitt?s testimony causes distinguished soldier John Adinett to be sentenced to hang for the inexplicable murder of a friend. Instead of being praised for his key testimony, Pitt is removed from his station command and transferred to Whitechapel, one of the East End?s most dangerous slums. There he must work undercover investigating alleged anarchist plots. Among his few allies are his clever wife, Charlotte, and intrepid Gracie, the maid who can travel unremarked in Whitechapel. But none of them anticipate the horrors to be revealed. . . .
?ONE OF HER BEST MYSTERIES EVER . . . You can?t put this book down. . . . Each scene, each encounter takes on a many-layered resonance.?
?The Providence Sunday Journal
?A POWERHOUSE OF A HISTORY-MYSTERY . . . Reading Perry is a bit like reading Thackeray edited by Elmore Leonard.?
?Booklist (starred review)
After a less-than-impressive outing with the more-turgid-than-tense Half Moon Street, Anne Perry is back on familiar--and entertaining-- turf with The Whitechapel Conspiracy. As if apologizing for their last efforts, the whole Victorian crew seems thankfully less concerned with respecting social mores than with ratcheting up the pressure in a nicely paced political-conspiracy potboiler.
For Inspector Thomas Pitt, doing one's job can have unpleasant consequences. When his testimony sends distinguished soldier John Adinett to the gallows for the murder of Martin Fetters, traveler and antiquarian, Adinett's friends (members of the Inner Circle, "those men who had secret loyalties which superseded every other honor or pledge") ensure that Pitt loses his command of the Bow Street station. He is forced to leave his family and take up an undercover existence in the slum district of Spitalfields, chasing anarchists (though he feels he might as well be chasing his own tail). But when his wife, Charlotte, their maid, Gracie, and her would-be suitor, Sergeant Tellman, apply themselves to the task of restoring Pitt's good name, they uncover an anarchist's conspiracy that dwarfs even Guy Fawkes's Gunpowder Plot. The secrets and lies of respected men lurking in the halls of power, who will stop at nothing short of abolishing the monarchy, form the backdrop for the trio's frantic investigations. To top everything off, Perry throws in a marvelously effective subplot--but to divulge how Jack the Ripper figures into the narrative would be to spoil a highly entertaining read.
The novel has its flaws; Charlotte's great-aunt Vespasia seems less the dynamic character she has been throughout the series than a mouthpiece of mourning for the waves of change. Yes, the reader is tempted to say, the potential downfall of the British monarchy would no doubt be painful and unspeakably unsettling for those who respect Victoria and her forebears--but must one natter endlessly on about it? Better to let the whole shebang go gracefully into that good night. No fears for contemporary Victorian-philes, though; with Thomas and Charlotte around, who could doubt that the monarchy will live to fight another day? --Kelly Flynn
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