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Gallows Thief |
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Author:
Bernard Cornwell
By HarperCollins
Average Customer Rating:  
List Price: £7.99
Our Price: £0.01
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Binding: Paperback
EAN: 9780007127160
ISBN: 0007127162
Label: HarperCollins
Manufacturer: HarperCollins
Number Of Pages: 416
Publication Date: 2002-08-05
Publisher: HarperCollins
Studio: HarperCollins |
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- New
- Mint Condition
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Product Description
1820s Britain: after the wars with France, when unemployment was high and soldiers could be paid off, when the government was desperately afraid of social unrest, any crime was drastically punished and thousands were hung. But one could petition the King and an investigation might ensue!
Amazon.co.uk Review
By setting Gallows Thief in the Regency period, Bernard Cornwell is able to use his customary skills of characterisation and razor-sharp plotting against a vividly realised new backdrop. It is Britain in the 1820s. After the wars with France, with unemployment high and soldiers paid off, the government lives in mortal fear of social unrest. The solution is draconian punishment for any crime, and thousands die on the gallows. But despite this, it was possible to petition the King and instigate an investigation. Cornwell's new hero Rider Sandman is a hero of Waterloo struggling to repay his family debts when he becomes involved in the case of a man waiting to be hanged in Newgate prison. Given the job by the Home Secretary of investigating the man's guilt or innocence, Sandman finds himself knee-deep in labyrinthine plots involving bribes, sedition and a massive conspiracy of silence. As this suggests, the contemporary parallels are never far away. The world Cornwell has conjured for us is as richly drawn as any in his distinguished career: gentlemen's clubs and taverns, haughty aristocrats, fashionable painters and their mistresses, and professional cut-throats; all this creates a heady melange that is just as impressive as anything in Cornwell's Sharpe series. --Barry Forshaw
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My favorite Cornwell, 2009-12-30
I am a huge fan of Cornwell, and indeed historical fiction in general. I think this is his best offering I have encountered with rounded characters and a certain light heartedness that has been absent in many of his other titles. The main character is believable and likable and `ye Olde London' jumps off the page and surrounds you with just a dash of the more serious class divide of the time a digestible side line.
Many Cornwell books have very elongated battles and wars which can be quite brutal. This novel was more swashbuckling adventure and I would recommend it to any one, history buff or civilian.
Roy of the Rovers discredits capital punishment?, 2010-08-11
The novel, set mainly in post-Waterloo London, opens with four persons about to be executed at Newgate. A common event? Well, no: it only happened on two of the 7000+ days of the first two decades of the nineteenth century. One of the hanged is a female accused of stealing pearls, found a week later behind a sofa. This author is stacking the odds up against any possible case for capital punishment. Step up, Captain Sandman, to rescue another condemned but innocent man. The adventures are splendid and the pages turn rapidly .... but it's all too easy to emote against the criminal justice system of the early nineteenth century, eventually reformed by that great and courageous Home Secretary and, later, Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel ..... and he was very much in favour of retaining the ultimate deterrent of capital punishment.
Another reliable read from Cornwell, 2008-07-09
Having developed an attachment to Sharpe, I was somewhat hesitant about Rider Sandman at the beginning of Cornwell's foray into 1820s Britain, but despite claims of the author's basic characterisation, I soon found myself rooting for him. This is a sympathy encouraged by Cornwell's not so subtle comments on the injustices of the age, but the world is so involving that these references only seem questionable in hindsight. The twists and turns of the criminal plot provide a refreshing take on the Sharpe model, and although the novel is not greatly thought provoking, it certainly kept me flying through page after page.
Typically Solid Historical Entertainment, 2008-02-27
Those familiar with Cornwell's many historical series will get more or less what they expect from this latest effort: a plot-driven story featuring a rugged, likable hero who must use his wits and skill at arms to defeat dastardly villains, all spiced with a bit of romance and plenty of period detail. Set in 1817, following the defeat of Napoleon, we meet Captain Rider Sandman, late of the 52nd Foot Regiment. His father's massive fraud and subsequent suicide have forced Sandman to sell his commission in order to maintain his mother and sister in at least semi-respectable style. Meanwhile, Sandman is forced to lodge in a shabby room above a "flash" London tavern, hoping to find some kind of respectable work while he ekes out a living as a professional cricket player.
A friend recommends him to the Home Secretary, who offers Sandman short-term prospects as a special investigator. He is to investigate an appeal from a "death row" inmate, a portrait painter convicted of the rape and murder of a Countess. He is expected to rubber-stamp the conviction by eliciting a confession from the petitioner, but those who know Cornwell's work won't be surprised when Sandman instead believes the painter's protestations of innocence and sets out to reinvestigate the murder. Soon, his poking and prodding places him in conflict with powerful and wealthy interests, and things become increasingly perilous as he races against time to find the real culprit and prove the painter's innocence.
It's a serviceable enough mystery, and Cornwell's command of the era enables him to bring Regency-era society vividly to life with. There is some nice detail on "flash" (underworld) slang, the ineptitude of the legal system, the horror of capital punishment by hanging, and even cricket (there's not nearly as much cricket in the book as some reviewers insinuate, it's really a very minor element). Like most of Cornwell's books, it's all about plot and period; the characters aren't particularly complex, and there are perhaps a coincidence or two too many to help Sandman along. Still, it's a lively, easy-to-read, historical entertainment which leaves plenty of setup for further Rider Sandman adventures.
Good Historical Drama about an lesser known subject, 2010-08-09
The feel of early 19th Century England is well captured in a post Waterloo world of peace abroad but civil unrest at home. The novel is centred around what was, at the time, a key part of deterrence against that unrest - capital punishment.
The central character is of that world, an ex soldier called Sandman who by chance is given the task of dealing with one of the key flaws in capital punishment, the inadequacy of the the justice system itself. In some ways Sandman seems a bit like he is "what Sharpe did after the war" but in other ways he is quite different.
As the story progresses an excellent murder mystery develops and this combines with the excellent scenery descriptions to create a great experience and a nerve-wracking final few chapters as time runs out to save an innocent man.
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