More of wot I have read…

The Gallows Thief by Bernard Cornwell

I have not read many of his books and I have totally missed the Sharpe phenomenon on the small screen, but I am aware of the author’s attention to detail and passion for this period in British history. It is an enjoyable read – some might even call it a ‘ripping yarn’ - although some of the characters do tend towards being cartoon like and the subject is presented in a ‘boys-own’ sort of way.

‘Gallows Thief is a detective story, set in Regency London, a time when there were no detectives as such. There was a very busy gallows, however. This was a period when the English and Welsh gallows were at their busiest and, very occasionally, the government appointed an 'Investigator' to look into a conviction. That Investigator is the hero and detective, a man who was an army officer, but who, since the battle of Waterloo (it had to get in somehow) has fallen on hard times.’

Bernard Cornwell is a literary miracle. Year after year, hail, rain, snow, war and political upheavals fail to prevent him from producing the most entertaining and readable historical novels of his generation. And this is one of his best. Rider Sandman is a typical Cornwell hero, rather like his best known central character from the Sharpe series, Richard Sharpe. Sandman is poor but honest, a decent man in desperate times. The story opens with a stomach-churning series of public hangings in 1817, and then switches to Sandman being offered money to investigate a murder and the chance to save a convicted murderer from the gallows. The authorities are convinced that Charles Corday, a portrait painter, murdered a countess whose portrait he was painting. But before stringing up Corday, the Home Secretary is forced, by the intervention of the Queen, to hire an investigator to confirm the painter's guilt. Sandman is an early 19th century Philip Marlowe, a Georgian private detective, moving effortlessly from aristocratic circles to the slums and jails of London. Cornwell at his best is utterly compelling. And this is Cornwell at his best.
Gavin Esler - Daily Mail