A wonderful Napoleonic mystery with a highly engaging setting…

Gallows Thief by Bernard Cornwell is a standalone novel about a British officer down on his luck and hired to investigator an accused murderer’s guilt days before his meeting with the Hangman.

True…this is technically a mystery historical novel, but I was much more deeply interested in the world Cornwell created than the mystery of the young man’s guilt.

The lead character (and the POW for a majority of the book) is Rider Sandman, a veteran of Waterloo and respected cricket player (SOOOO Much cricket talk in this book) hired to investigate on behalf of the London government. Of course…they don’t actually want him to do anything…but a man of honor won’t just take money for nothing…

What follows is a fascinating tour through the dark parts of London society including play houses, artist studios, the Old Bailey, secret degenerate clubs, and cricket fields as Sandman crosses paths with a host of wild characters…some are allies, some of enemies, some are allies that become enemies and vice versa, and some are just quirky characters that help to shape this world.

I honestly could have cared less if they cut out the mystery elements, but those were the means to an end for Sandman to go around and cross paths with various figures…

The book has a wide host of various slang and terminology which they helpfully explain…and it captures the impact of the end of Napoleon on various elements of London society (most notably the soldiers who survived and those pampered londoners that never served).

I really liked this, and it’s a shame there aren’t more with these characters.