Lichfield, England, 1789. Enter Samuel Kinsman, former theology student, now a thieftaker. Formerly one of Mr Fielding’s Men in London (aka a Bow Street Runner) Samuel has moved to Lichfield to escape the gang violence in the capital that threatened him, his wife Susannah and their children.
Lichfield was then both a city and a county with its courts and its own constabulary known as ‘dozeners’, answerable to the High Constable, the post to which Samuel was appointed on his move from London. However, an error of judgement leads to Samuel’s resignation and his corrupt rival, Elford Rigby, takes over leaving Samuel reliant on him for work.
When respected local lawyer Thomas Newton is found dead in Lichfield’s ancient cathedral, Rigby asks Kinsman to investigate. Newton’s widow is the daughter of a successful Huguenot gunmaker in Birmingham, and Kinsman tangles with the efforts of French royalist spies trying to trace the origin of weapons being shipped to insurrectionists in Rouen. At the same time former army officers want to involve Kinsman in their plans for a league to protect England from foreigners.
To assist his investigation, Samuel calls on his friend Frank Barber, Dr Johnson’s former manservant, who inherited Johnson’s house in Lichfield and has himself been appointed a dozener. And the stolid, Dudley Netherford, Lichfield born and bred, is Samuel’s reliable watchman, happy to do much of the plodding and grunt work of day to day policing.
“Very intriguing indeed…You have a classic murder mystery at the novel’s heart. I can’t think of another novel which deals with the plight of the Huguenot refugees who fled to this country and settled here, so your choice of subject matter is both interesting and original. Added to that the novel’s other theme, namely the initiation of and ideology behind the notion of a ‘police force’. Samuel’s training and his duties are a precursor to our idea of what ‘detection’ is and, as such, this provides another fascinating backdrop for the novel.” Richard Skinner, now Director of the Fiction Programme at Faber Academy.
