Gallows Thief

In 1817, former army officer Rider Sandman is asked to investigate the conviction of a young man due to be hanged for murder. The evidence appears straightforward, but Sandman’s inquiries expose unreliable witnesses, class prejudice and institutional pressure to preserve a verdict.

Moving through Regency London’s taverns, prisons, theatres and criminal courts, Sandman confronts a justice system in which execution is common and investigation is rudimentary. The novel combines a murder inquiry with a portrait of the Bloody Code and the social divisions of post-Napoleonic Britain.