Gallows Thief - Couverture rigide

Cornwell, Bernard

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0060082739 ISBN 13 : 9780060082734

Editeur : Harper, 2002

Synopsis

Book by Cornwell Bernard

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur :

A spellbinding historical drama about an ex-soldier in 1820s London who must help rescue an innocent man from Death Row, by bestselling author Bernard Cornwell

It is the end of the Napoleonic Wars and England has just fought its last victorious battle against the French. As Rider Sandman and the other heroes of Waterloo begin to make their way back to England, they find a country where corruption, poverty, and social unrest run rampant, and where "justice" is most often delivered at the end of a hangman's noose. Nowhere in London are the streets as busy as in front of Newgate Prison, its largest penitentiary, where mobs gather regularly to watch the terrible spectacle of the doomed men and women on the gallows' stands.

Rider Sandman -- whose reputation on the battlefields of France is exceeded only by his renown on the cricket fields of England -- returns home from war to discover his personal affairs in a shambles. Creditors have taken over his estate, leaving him penniless -- and forcing him to release the woman he loves from her obligations to marry him. Desperate to right his situation, he accepts the offer of a job investigating the claims of innocence by a painter due to hang for murder in a few days' time. The Home Secretary makes it clear that this is pro-forma, and that he expects Sandman to rubber-stamp the verdict.But Sandman's investigation reveals that something is amiss -- that there is merit to the young artist's claims. He further discovers that, though the Queen herself has ordered a reinvestigation of the circumstances, someone else does not want the truth revealed.

In a race against the clock, Sandman moves from the hellish bowels of Newgate prison to the perfumed drawing rooms of the aristocracy, determined to rescue the innocent man from the rope. As he begins to peel back the layers of an utterly corrupt penal system, he finds himself pitted against some of the wealthiest and most ruthless men in Regency England.

Gallows Thief combines the rich historical texture of Edward Rutherford and the taut suspense of Caleb Carr to create an eviscerating portrait of capital punishment in nineteeth-century London.

Biographie de l'auteur :

BERNARD CORNWELL is the author of the acclaimed New York Times bestselling Saxon Tales series, which includes The Last Kingdom, The Pale Horseman, Lords of the North, Sword Song, The Burning Land, Death of Kings, The Pagan Lord, and, most recently, The Empty Throne and Warriors of the Storm, and which serves as the basis for the hit television series The Last Kingdom. He lives with his wife on Cape Cod and in Charleston, South Carolina.

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Harper
• Date d'édition: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0060082739
• ISBN 13: 9780060082734
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 304