Anne Perry’s acclaimed Charlotte and Thomas Pitt novels have made London’s exclusive world of wealth and power an addictive literary destination for listeners everywhere. This masterpiece, a haunting story of love and treason, invites us not only into the secret places of Britain’s power but also into the innermost sanctums of the fin de siècle Austro-Hungarian Empire. Thomas Pitt, once a lowly policeman, is now the powerful head of Britain’s Special Branch, and some people fear that he may have been promoted beyond his abilities. He, too, feels painful moments of self-doubt, especially as rumors reach him of a plot to blow up connections on the Dover-London rail line ― on which Austrian duke Alois Habsburg is soon to travel to visit his royal English kin.
