Written by: Patrick Easter
Submitted By: David Coote
This novel is set in 1798 (and even has a few paragraphs about Nelson's victory at the Battle of the Nile) and describes, in fairly graphic detail, one case in the life of one of the original members of the Watermen Constables, the first Thames river police and later to be incorporated into the Police Force. The principle characters are Thomas Pascoe, formerly a captain in the Royal Navy of the time and now on the beach, and Joseph Boylin, leader of a gang of 'lumpers' employed in loading and unloading merchant ships.
The book describes the criminal activities taking place and the attempts by the Watermen to bring the criminals to justice, and the entanglement of the love lives of the two principal characters, together with the connivance of the gentry in Boylin's activities.
An excellent addition to the fiction already set in the era of the Napoleonic Wars, and well worth a place on the book shelf.
