Pryde’s Rock

by Malcolm Archibald

Book 1 in the Matthew Pryde Adventures series.

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Northumberland, 1803. Young engineer Matthew Pryde is sent to a remote coastal estate to persuade its owner that a lighthouse is needed after a succession of fatal wrecks. The assignment brings him back into contact with a former school tormentor and draws him toward smugglers, local rivalries and evidence that the coast may hold the answer to his own uncertain origins.

The novel combines mystery with the practical world of early nineteenth-century engineering. Lighthouse construction, hazardous navigation and fear of renewed war with France shape a community in which wrecking, trade and landed authority overlap, making Pryde’s technical commission inseparable from questions of identity and power.