London in the year 1700 is one of the world’s greatest cities where fortunes are made and spent by the elite. However for the poor London is a rat’s nest of mean streets and alleys stinking from sewerage and offal. With little charity around a person can soon sink in to poverty, starvation, and death.
Michael and Sean are two ex-soldiers down on their luck. Worrying they will not survive the winter with out a job they offer to kill James Bodget, a rich merchant, for a large fee. Bodget is married to a much younger Susannah. Her lover wants Bodget out of the way so he and Susannah can enjoy Bodget’s fortune.
Michael and Sean plan the murder as if they were still soldiers. Despite their best efforts the murder is nearly a failure. Even worse despite the lack of a proper police force it seems half of London is out to find them and bring them to the gallows.
First blocked from collecting their fee, then tricked out of it Michael and Sean find a ring of Bodget’s rich friends and relatives closing in. Finally trapped in their attic room there is only one way to avoid the hangman.
Excerpt
Sean stepped forward. The blunderbuss was under his coat, the butt up in his right armpit with his hand holding it by the bell shaped muzzle against his side. With his left hand he twisted the door handle and flung it open.
Putting his left foot on the foot-iron he leaned into the coach with the blunderbuss now out from under his coat
and the muzzle coming up to point straight at Bodget’s chest. Sean’s right hand pulled the hammer back to full cock.
Behind him in the front seat Susannah screamed but Sean hardly heard her. His whole attention was on the muzzle pointing at Bodget’s chest.
His right forefinger curled round and squeezed the trigger back. The hammer
dropped and ignited the powder in the pan.
In the confined space of the coach the gunshot was deafening. Thick smoke from the blunderbuss instantly filled the coach. The five small balls that made up the blunderbuss’ load tore through Bodget’s chest, killing him.
Tralee, Ireland. September 1948.
An arrogant, and highly agitated, priest arrives home after 40 years.
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Fourth Book in the Southern Swallow Series finds the Academician Li K'ai-men in exile on Hai-nan Island. China has a new invasion threat. A showdown between ingenuity and technology explodes as the Sung Dynasty tries to preserve itself.
A delightfully rare Historical Novel. 85% a biography of a spy, musician, mother and her neice trapped behind German lines in World War I. This background led to a diplomatic post in World War II. Aged 92, Vera disclosed her past life one year before
