Why a Booktrail?
1885: The remarkable story of one detective’s ceaseless hunt for an elusive criminal
By Gaslight
What you need to know before your trail
A woman’s body is discovered on Edgware Road; ten miles away, her head is dredged from the dark, muddy waters of the Thames. Detective William Pinkerton has a lead to the notorious thief Edward Shade, but that ends up going nowhere. Determined to drag Shade out of the shadows, Pinkerton has to venture into the dark seedy underworld of Victorian London, with its gas-lit streets, opium dens, sewers and degradation of all kinds
Adam Foole is a gentleman without a past, haunted by a love affair ten years gone. Returning to London in search of his lost beloved, his journey brings him face-to-face with Pinkerton, and what he learns of his lover’s fate will force him to confront a past – and a grief – he thought long buried.
Travel Guide
London
This is the London of the fog, gaslights, the dirty Thames and the underbelly in all its filthy glory
It is a maze of gas-lit streets, opium dens, sewers and séance halls. There are blackmailers, petty thieves, murderers and everyone in between roaming these streets, this cess-pit of a city. This is a snapshot of London’s “flash trade,” – grifters, pick pockets, and thieves.
“He made his way to the brown flats of the river, the low wall of the Embankment blue in the frost. When he looked out he could see the Albert Embankment across the river and the silhouettes of lampposts with arms upraised like crucified thieves.”
Diamond Rush – South Africa
The book is set primarily in 1880s London, but it also covers the Civil War and the “diamond rush” in South Africa. Talks of heists in Port Elizabeth anda trade carried out in secret.
It seems that the diamonds were not transported on the new railway but rather trucked out from De Beers and from the other mines surrounding Kimberley in a convoy of armed coaches moving at speed though the low desert country”
America
The US Civil War and the exploits of the American Wild West are also illustrated as subplots to the novel.
Booktrail Boarding Pass Information: By Gaslight
Author/Guide: Steven Price Destination: London Departure Time: 1885
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