The crime appeared as easily solved as it was wicked. A Grub Street printer, his family, and two apprentices brutally murdered in their sleep. A locked building. And at the scene, a raving mad poet brandishing a bloody axe. Surely the culprit had been found, and justice would be swift and severe. But to Sir John Fielding, justice wasn't just finding a culprit--it was fiinding the truth. Aided by thirteen-year-old Jeremy Proctor, Fielding decided to...

"Off the water that separates England from France, near the seaside town of Deal, it is a well-known fact that "owling," a local term for the illegal cargo trade, thrives on the moonlit beaches. At the behest of a very concerned Lord Chief Justice. Sir John and Jeremy travel to Deal to investigate the town magistrate, accused of complicity in the smuggling. Oddly, the young man is a trusted protege of the Lord Chief Justice himself."--Jacket.

Experience the dangerous intrigue of Georgian England in this novel in Bruce Alexander's acclaimed historical mystery series featuring Sir John Fielding. When the body of a young girl is pulled from the Thames, blind magistrate Sir John Fielding’s investigation leads his protégé, Jeremy Proctor, into the notorious Seven Dials section of London. There the sordid inclinations of both the working class and aristocracy may be found—and...