Everyone on Callander Square has something to hide—but someone will kill to keep a secretWhen two dead infants are dug up in the Callander Square gardens, the upper-class residents dismiss the burials as the desperate act of a low-born girl and resent the intrusion of Inspector Thomas Pitt into their well-ordered lives. Pitt is not convinced that the case should be so easily dropped. Also intrigued by the mystery, Pitt's well-born wife, Charlotte, pursues her own investigation into places Thomas would never have access—the parlors and inner chambers of the mansions on the fashionable square. With her sister Emily, Lady Ashworth, who lives on Callander Square, she delves into the lives and secrets of the residents. Thomas and Charlotte, now expecting their first child, form the perfect sleuthing couple. Elegant closets soon spill their skeletons exposing long-hidden secrets—secrets that could lead even the most upright aristocrat to kill.But will Pitt's...

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.

Whatever the season, a new novel by bestselling author Anne Perry is always a wonderful gift, but her holiday novels are particularly special treats, and A Christmas Beginning is a deeply felt story of passion and redemption. Superintendent Runcorn of Scotland Yard is spending Christmas on the wild and beautiful island of Anglesey off the north coast of Wales. On one of his solitary strolls, the lonely bachelor stumbles upon a lifeless body in the village churchyard. The unfortunate victim is quickly identified as Olivia Costain, the local vicar's younger sister. In life, Olivia had been a free spirit, full of charm and grace. For Runcorn, she is a haunting reminder of Melisande Ewart, the one woman he's never been able to forget. Everyone on Anglesey is quick to insist that only a stranger to the island could have committed the heinous crime. But the evidence proves otherwise, and the unpopular work of discovering who among Olivia's friends and neighbors—and...

SUMMARY: For the first time in one cozy volume: Anne Perry’s first two Christmas novels–yuletide offerings full of holiday magic . . . and murder A CHRISTMAS JOURNEY “One of the best books to brighten the joyous season.” –USA Today “This brief work has an almost Jamesian subtlety. . . . [A] powerful message of responsibility and redemption.” –The Wall Street Journal In the Berkshire countryside, family and guests have gathered for a delicious weekend fête surrounded by roaring fires and candlelight. It’s scarcely the setting for misfortune, and no one–not even that clever budding sleuth Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould–anticipates the tragedy that is to darken this holiday house party. A CHRISTMAS VISITOR “Satisfyingly dark and suspenseful.” –Entertainment Weekly “Wondrous . . . a welcome entry to the seasonal thriller.” –Richmond Times-Dispatch At the Dreghorn family reunion, the tranquility of a snowbound English estate is shattered by what an apparently accidental death. The victim’s distraught wife summons her godfather, the distinguished mathematician and inventor Henry Rathbone, to the scene. And questions about the tragic event soon turn into whispers of murder.

Anne Perry has dazzled readers for decades with her gripping Victorian novels and has won new fans with her acclaimed World War I series. Perry's thrilling Christmas novels, recent additions to her unique repertoire, are set in the most joyous season of the year. In A Christmas Guest, Mariah Ellison, better known as the vinegar-tongued Grandmama from the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt series, makes a stunning appearance in a bracing story full of devious delight . . . and certain death.For Grandmama Ellison, Christmas is no reason to celebrate. And when her daughter and son-in-law plan a Christmas vacation to Paris sans hers truly, the cantankerous Grandmama is forced to stay elsewhere--and travels to the chilly, windswept Romney Marshes to spend the holiday with Charlotte Pitt's parents, Caroline and Joshua Fielding. Grandmama is immediately miserable. For starters, Christmas with the Fieldings is nothing like the cultured life to which she's accustomed, and the...

Whatever the season, a new novel by bestselling author Anne Perry is always a wonderful gift, but her holiday novels are particularly special treats, and A Christmas Beginning is a deeply felt story of passion and redemption.Superintendent Runcorn of Scotland Yard is spending Christmas on the wild and beautiful island of Anglesey off the north coast of Wales. On one of his solitary strolls, the lonely bachelor stumbles upon a lifeless body in the village churchyard. The unfortunate victim is quickly identified as Olivia Costain, the local vicar's younger sister. In life, Olivia had been a free spirit, full of charm and grace. For Runcorn, she is a haunting reminder of Melisande Ewart, the one woman he's never been able to forget. Everyone on Anglesey is quick to insist that only a stranger to the island could have committed the heinous crime. But the evidence proves otherwise, and the unpopular work of discovering who among Olivia's friends and neighbors--and...

BONUS: This edition contains excerpts from Anne Perry's Treason at Lisson Grove and Execution Dock.A young bridegroom enlists private investigator William Monk to track down his fiancée, Miriam Gardiner, who disappeared suddenly from a party at a luxurious Bayswater mansion. Monk soon finds the coach in which Miriam fled and, nearby, the murdered body of the coachman, but there is no trace of the young passenger. What strange compulsion could have driven the beautiful widow to abandon the prospect of a loving marriage and financial abundance? Monk and clever nurse Hester Latterly, themselves now newlyweds, desperately pursue the elusive truth--and an unknown killer whose malign brilliance they have scarcely begun to fathom.

In this superbly accomplished new Charlotte and Thomas Pitt adventure, Anne Perry takes us beneath the glittering surface of wealthy Victorian society into a nightmare world of fear and intimidation, where women are too often blamed for the violent attacks against them, and powerful men take what they want, leaving others to pay the price. The horrifying rape and apparent suicide of Catherine Quixwood, wife of a wealthy merchant banker, falls outside the new jurisdiction of Special Branch head Thomas Pitt, but so pervasively offensive are the rumors about the victim that Pitt quietly takes a hand in the investigation. Yet even with the help of his ingenious wife, Charlotte, and his former superior, Victor Narraway, Pitt is stumped. Why did high-minded, cultured Catherine choose not to accompany her husband to a grand party on the night of her demise? Why did she dismiss all her servants for the evening and leave the front door unlocked? What had been her...

In Revolutionary France, a grisly murder threatens to derail an ambitious plan to save the condemned kingClie Laurent stands in the convention hall of the French Republic, watching the deputies vote one by one. Most of them have just one word to say: Death. As the night wears on, the outcome of the vote moves beyond doubt, and Louis XVI is condemned to the guillotine. Clie will have just four days to save the king's life. As the Revolution reaches a fever pitch, Clie falls in with a group of royalists who are willing to do whatever it takes to keep France from killing its king. Their plan is daring, but just might work—until the group's leader is murdered in cold blood. Somewhere among the royalists lies a traitor, and Clie and her friends must find him soon, lest they lose their heads before Louis loses his.

Inspector William Monk has his hands full when an aristocrat's daugher is stabbed to death in her own bed. He is instructed to proceed without delay, but finds his efforts hamstrung by the lingering traces of amnesia and the craven ineptitutde of his supervisor, who would love to see him fail. With the help of Hester Latterly, formerly a nurse with Florence Nightingale, Monk gropes warily through the silence and shadows, knowing that with each step he comes closer to the appalling truth...."A richly textured, masterfully plotted, thoroughly enjoyable story." THE KIRKUS REVIEWSFrom the Paperback edition.

Exiled from her palace by a bloody coup, an empress travels the dangerous wilds of her kingdom in search of enlightenment—and righteous vengeanceThe empress Tathea is awakened by the sounds of insurrection. The army, the aristocracy, and the royal guard have all turned against her husband, and stained the palace with his blood. Were she an ordinary ruler, she might follow him to the grave, but Tathea is a child of the wild lands. She comes from the desert, so to the desert she flees. Across the kingdom she travels, searching for shelter, friendship, and an explanation for the tragedy that destroyed her old life. As she fights to stay alive, she finds a book whose message might tip the scales in the battle between good and evil, changing the world forever. If her life is to have meaning, Tathea will have to spread the word.