Rapscallion (Regency Crime Thriller) - Hardcover

McGee, James

4.04

663 ratings by Goodreads

9781605984278: Rapscallion (Regency Crime Thriller)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1605984272 ISBN 13: 9781605984278

Publisher: Pegasus Crime, 2013

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For a French prisoner of war, there is only one fate worse than the gallows: the hulks. Former man-o-wars, now converted to prison ships, their fearsome reputation guarantees a sentence served in dreadful conditions. Few survive. Escape, it's said, is impossible. Yet reports persist of a sinister smuggling operation within this brutal world, and the Royal Navy is worried enough to send two of its officers to investigate.

When they disappear without a trace, the Navy turns in desperation to Bow Street for help. It's time to send in a man as dangerous as the prey. It's time to send in Hawkwood.

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Review:

Rambunctious entertainment.

A darkly attractive hero, terrific period atmosphere andaction that moves so fast.

A richly enjoyable and impressively researched novel - also very gripping. James McGee is clearly a rising star in the historical galaxy and I look forward to Hawkwood's return.--Andrew Taylor, author of The American Boy

This adventure yarn races along with twists and turns that grip from page to page. It's a cracker; unrelentingly entertaining. And it's one of the best books I've read in a long while.

From the Author:

James McGee discusses the setting of 'Rapscallion'

Any town that could inspire such anger in a Prime Minister that he ordered its entire boat fleet burnt to a cinder has got to be worth a mention in any one's book. Well, it was in mine....

Deal was the town and it was Deal's role in the smuggling trade during the 18th and 19th centuries that inflamed the wrath of William Pitt, Britain's then premier politician, and gave me the idea for Rapscallion, the third Matthew Hawkwood adventure; a tale of prison hulks, French privateers and the landing of contraband on moonlit beaches. But the link with the `wicked trade' is just one of Deal's claims to fame. The castle, built by Henry VIII, guarded the Downs, the vast anchorage that was home to the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, and Horatio Nelson walked Deal's narrow streets. Who wouldn't want to follow in the footsteps of Britain's greatest naval hero and retrace history?

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