Ashworth Hall - Softcover

Perry, Anne

3.92

3,270 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0449000869 ISBN 13: 9780449000861

Publisher: Fawcett, 1998

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When a group of powerful Irish Protestants and Catholics gather at a country house to discuss Irish home rule, contention is to be expected. But when the meeting's moderator, government bigwig Ainsley Greville, is found murdered in his bath, negotiations seem doomed. To make matters worse, it appears the late Greville may have led a less than savory personal life.

Unless Thomas Pitt and his wife, Charlotte, can root out the truth, simmering hatreds and passions may again explode in murder, the home rule movement may collapse, and civil war may destroy all of Ireland. . . .

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Review:

Longtime readers of Anne Perry will be familiar with Inspector Thomas Pitt, the low-born London copper with a better-born wife, Charlotte. Set during the Victorian era, Perry's mysteries usually examine the dark underbelly of aristocratic life. Homosexuality, adultery, and pedophilia have all been subjects of her previous books; in Ashworth Hall she injects a new ingredient: politics.

Ashworth Hall is the name of an estate where, in the autumn of 1890, a highly secret meeting is being held to discuss Anglo-Irish relations. The "Irish Problem" soon takes a backseat to murder, however, and Inspector Pitt, who as the son of servants grew up on just such an estate, is called in to solve the case. While he investigates below-stairs, Charlotte gathers clues above. As usual, their collaboration is successful, both in crime-solving and as literature.

From the Back Cover:

"DEADLY INTRIGUES . . . INTELLIGENTLY WRITTEN AND HISTORICALLY FASCINATING."
--The Wall Street Journal

"Though one of the pleasures of Anne Perry's mysteries is her atmospheric and vivid rendering of Victorian England, the plot of her satisfying new novel, ASHWORTH HALL, is as contemporary as today's headlines."
--San Francisco Chronicle

"[A] REWARDING SERIES."
--The New York Times Book Review

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