Thomas Shield, a young schoolmaster in Regency London, finds himself drawn into a murky world of money and murder. Elegant country houses and drinking dens, pimps and baronets, new money, old money and those without money leap off the pages of this spellbinding story. You will happily lose yourself in this tangled tale which can be mentioned in the same breath as the work of Dickens, Austen and Eliot.
Not just one man but two: the second flung himself at me. Both wore dark clothes. I twisted in the grasp of the first. Metal chinked on the brickwork. I smelled hot, stale breath. A voice swore. I heard footsteps running through the muck from the street.
'God damn you,' a man howled.
A great blow hit my head. Pain fogged my vision. The last thing I heard was another man yelling: 'Mother of Christ!'
