A Spectacle Of Corruption
On sale
17th January 2014
Price: £12.99
Selected:
Paperback / ISBN-13: 9780349118314
Benjamin Weaver is awaiting death in Newgate gaol. Mysteriously convicted for a murder he didn’t commit by a judge determined to see him hang, he is suddenly – and equally mysteriously – offered the means to escape. What, you may well ask, is going on?
It’s a question Weaver asks of himself as he slinks out into the London night on a mission to clear his name. In doing so, he steps straight into a labyrinthine plot that weaves, like Benjamin, across eighteenth century London. For the conspiracy against him is part of a grimmer and gaudier picture: one that encompasses double-dealings and dockworkers, the extorting of a priest – and a looming election with the potential to spark a revolution and topple the monarchy.
Handily, Weaver is a private investigator. He’s also an ex-pugilist, which is also a good thing when it comes to punching his weight in the ‘polite’ society of plotters and politicians, power-brokers, crime lords, assassins and spies. At the apex of which sits, rather precariously, a recent import from Hanover: The King.
It’s a question Weaver asks of himself as he slinks out into the London night on a mission to clear his name. In doing so, he steps straight into a labyrinthine plot that weaves, like Benjamin, across eighteenth century London. For the conspiracy against him is part of a grimmer and gaudier picture: one that encompasses double-dealings and dockworkers, the extorting of a priest – and a looming election with the potential to spark a revolution and topple the monarchy.
Handily, Weaver is a private investigator. He’s also an ex-pugilist, which is also a good thing when it comes to punching his weight in the ‘polite’ society of plotters and politicians, power-brokers, crime lords, assassins and spies. At the apex of which sits, rather precariously, a recent import from Hanover: The King.
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Reviews
A tightly plotted, engrossing read.
The end of the story is both surprising and unexpected. I would recommend this book highly as both a straightforward mystery and for the picture it paints of early 18th century politics and society.