Gallows Thief

Product Description

1820s Britain: after the wars with France when unemployment was high & soldiers could be paid off when the government was desperately afraid of social unrest any crime was drastically punished & thousands were hung. But one could petition the King & an investigation might ensue! The man in the dark cell in Newgate Prison was due to hang in a week. He had been found guilty of murdering the aristocrat whose portrait he was painting. He claimed to be innocent -- but then the hangman had never hung a guilty man he said. But even in 1820 the Home Secretary could occasionally use his powers to grant mercy if his investigator found cause & Rider Sandman once of the First Foot Guards is given the job. Rider Sandman a hero of Waterloo has family debts to repay but when his first steps in the investigations produce a sizeable bribe to look the other way this only arouses his smouldering anger over the condition of England a country which he & others in Wellingtons army had fought to preserve. Stepping between gentlemens clubs & taverns talking to aristocrats fashionable painters their models & their mistresses dodging professional cut-throats & deceptive swordsmen Sandman uncovers a conspiracy of silence a group whose proudest boast was that they would do anything for any one of them. Sandman is a wonderful character as yet undaunted by the sleazy streets dank jails or the looming scaffold & uncorrupted by politicians sneering gentlemen or frightening bruisers an investigator in the making & a brilliant but very different hero for all Bernard Cornwell fans.