Gallows Thief

April 29, 2002
Fans of Cornwell's gallant up-from-the-ranks rifleman, Richard Sharpe, will welcome the upright Captain Rider Sandman, a veteran, like Sharpe, of Waterloo and the Peninsula campaign, in a mystery that highlights the horrors of capital punishment in Regency England. Compelled as a civilian to play cricket to earn a bare living in the wake of his disgraced father's financial ruin and suicide, Sandman can hardly refuse the Home Secretary's job offer of looking into the case of Charles Corday, a portrait painter convicted of murdering the Countess of Avebury. Since Corday's mother has the ear of Queen Charlotte, someone has to go through the motions of confirming Corday's guilt before he goes to the scaffold. Sandman, though, soon realizes that the man is innocent, and to prove it he has to locate a servant girl who was a likely witness to the countess's murder and has now disappeared. Sandman's investigation leads him to confront the corrupt and decadent members of London's Seraphim Club, but fortunately his reputation as a brave battlefield officer turns into allies any number of ex-soldier ruffians who might otherwise have given him trouble. The suspense mounts as Sandman must race the clock to prevent a miscarriage of justice at the nail-biting climax. An unresolved subplot involving our hero's ex-fiancée, who still loves him despite his fall into poverty, suggests that Sandman will be back for further crime-solving adventures. Traditional historical mystery readers should cheer. (May 5)Forecast:Since the Sharpe series already has a strong following among mystery fans, it should be easy for Cornwell to build on that audience if this is indeed the start of a new crime series. He is also the author of two other historical series, the Nathaniel Starbuck Chronicles and the Warlord Chronicles.

March 1, 2011
This first-ever unabridged audio recording of Cornwell's (www.bernardcornwell.net) 2002 novel introduces the character of Capt. Rider Sandman, who is unwittingly forced to investigate the cruelties of capital punishment at Newgate Prison in 1817 London. Fresh from the Battle of Waterloo, Sandman is exposed to the corrupt and unfair penal system with the case of Charles Corday, a painter awaiting hanging for a murder he didn't commit. Cornwell elevates the somewhat predicable plot line through his vivid descriptions, characterizations, pacing, and attention to political details. Actor/narrator Sean Barrett skillfully voices characters of different classes and backgrounds. For historical fiction fans. [Cornwell "weaves the ambience and issues of the day…with a gripping plot and a memorable character," read the review of the HarperCollins hc, "LJ"4/15/02.—Ed.]—Joyce Kessel, Villa Maria Coll., Buffalo

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2002
Cornwell, author of the best-selling Richard Sharpe saga, turns his attention from the battlefield in this meticulously crafted historical mystery. After successfully defending his country at Waterloo, Captain Rider Sandman returns to England to face bankruptcy and disgrace. Unable to pay off his enormous gambling debts, Rider's father has committed suicide, leaving his son to uphold the family honor. Penniless and without prospects, Rider sells his commission to house his mother and younger sister. Looking for any type of honest work that will enable him to live and to pay off some of his father's creditors, he accepts an assignment to investigate the circumstances of the brutal rape and murder of the countess of Avebury. Though a hapless young portrait painter has already been convicted of the crime, Sandman begins to suspect well-connected members of the aristocracy have framed him. Racing against time to save a man from the gallows, his inquiries lead him into the seamy underbelly of upper-class Regency society. Cornwell's flair for authentic detailing distinguishes this suspenseful, action-packed period whodunit. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2002, American Library Association.)

April 15, 2002
Disgraced by his father's suicide and impoverished by the debts that drove him to it, Capt. Rider Sandman, late of His Majesty's 52nd Regiment of Foot, has been forced to sell his commission to support his mother and sister. Desperate to earn a living but with no skills besides soldiering and cricket, he has come to London in search of a job. When the Home Secretary offers him temporary employment investigating a sensational murder, he accepts it as easy money. All he has to do is elicit a confession from the young artist accused of raping and murdering the Countess of Avebury during her portrait sitting. But when Sandman visits him in Newgate, the artist defends his innocence so vehemently that Sandman begins to have his doubts. Unwillingly, he is drawn into an investigation that not only risks his life but introduces him to the darkest secrets of several aristocratic families. As with his popular Richard Sharpe novels (Sharpe's Trafalgar) and his Arthurian trilogy, "The Warlord Chronicles," Cornwell is superb at weaving the ambience and issues of the day (this time Regency England) with a gripping plot and a memorable character. Readers will hope to see more. Cynthia Johnson, Cary Memorial Lib., Lexington, MA

Copyright 2002 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.