Friday, September 7, 2012

Pinkerton Agency



Back in the Old West, having a Pinkerton agent on your tail or trail was grave cause for concern. These early private detectives were well armed and well paid. And they weren’t all men, either. 
Allan Pinkerton, along with Edward Rucker, founded the North Western Police Agency which later became known as the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in 1850 and in 1861 foiled a Baltimore assassination plot on President-Elect Abraham Lincoln.
Pinkerton organized the first secret service, the Union Intelligence Service which was the forerunner of the U.S. Secret Service. And he hired Kate Warne the first female detective, and she was instrumental in providing evidence that an assassination plot was indeed afoot. The Pinkertons, as the agents were called for short, were especially busy during the Civil War. They went undercover as Confederate soldiers or sympathizers.
Female Pinkerton detectives were especially suited to subterfuge and undercover work, making friends with suspects’ wives and girlfriends in order to procure evidence on suspects of crime. 
After the war, the Pinkertons investigated a series of train robberies as the country expanded Westward. His pursuit of the J.J. Younger, Dalton, and Jesse James’s gangs brought Allan Pinkerton and his agency to national attention. Agents infiltrated the unions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as well as hiring outright thugs to infiltrate the workers and suppress the unions.
One recent fictional Pinkerton agent was portrayed in the HBO series Deadwood. She was hired by a wealthy man’s family from back East to prove his widow was responsible for his death. She went undercover, being hired by the widow as a governess for the widow’s ward.
The Pinkerton agent in Taming Talia, Jared Fields, had a similar mission. He was assigned to prove that widow Natalia Salacito Montrose had hired someone to kill her husband, who was a disagreeable man who needed killing, or so everyone said. Jared was a ne’er do well, who’d gambled away his mother’s inheritance and been disinherited by his father. His privileged background made him a versatile undercover agent, able to mix with various classes of people, while it gave him a regular income as well as freedom from family expectations.
In 2001, Pinkerton and Burns International, another renowned PI firm, merged to become part of Securitas Security International. 

Blurb: A sex-starved widow vows to bed the first suitable man she meets. Luckily, Pinkerton Agent Jared Fields fills the bill.
New widow Natalia Montrose vows over her not-so-dearly-departed husband's grave to bed the first suitable man she meets. Enter Jared Fields who offers to assist in managing her newfound wealth. No indeed. This passionate woman would rather keep control of her wealth while enjoying the stranger until  all her desires are sated.
Disowned by his wealthy New York City family, Jared Fields enjoys the freedom afforded by the various assignments he receives from the Pinkerton Agency. But discovering whether or not the Widow Montrose had her husband killed may prove a little too difficult. When he meets the fiery widow, all he can think about is what he'll do when he gets her in bed.
When they meet, Natalia and Jared circle each other warily. Both feel the pull of sensual heat, but when the Blizzard of 1889 hits, will the sexual sparks be enough to keep them warm...or alive?


6 comments:

Marie-Nicole Ryan said...

Many thanks, Lynn, for letting me blather on about the Pinkerton Agency, as well as TAMING TALIA.

Maria D. said...

Great post Marie! One thing I've noticed about the "Pinkerton" agents is that they were definitely a feared group when they were after you:) Have you been watching "Copper" on BBC America? They show a different view of law enforcement towards the end of the Civil War in NY City and they had a group of Pinkerton agents on which even the police were leery of - I definitely like this time period in history - fascinating with a lot of changes taking place in a short amount of time.

Marie-Nicole Ryan said...

Yes, Marie, I've been watching Copper and love it. Yes, indeed Pinkerton agents were feared, our first private detectives, so-to-speak.

Toni V.S. said...

Enjoyed the post. I've read several books with Pinkerton agents as main characters and this blog has helped.

Anonymous said...

Good post. I have a book with a female Pinkerton in it called TAMING JENNA. Came out in paper from Kensington in 1994 and will soon be out as an e-book. Fun story.

Marie-Nicole Ryan said...

Toni, I've always been interested in Pinkerton agents ever since watching Deadwood which had a female Pinkerton agent.

Charlene, I will definitely be checking out your ebook. My original working title was PLEASURING THE PINKERTON, but TPTB decided not enough readers would know what a Pinkerton was. LOL