The Reward of Delay by John Davies.
Historical detective fiction set in 1789 serialised in short episodes.
Ambition thwarted, reputation wrecked, marriage in tatters.
Down at heel thief-taker Samuel Kinsman is dying for a fresh start.
Be careful what you wish for.
The mutilated body of respected local lawyer Thomas Newton is found in Lichfield’s ancient cathedral. Samuel Kinsman’s strong-minded wife Susannah urges him to improve his fortunes by investigating the crime, not least because she is pregnant.
Kinsman tries to uphold his principles of detection, but he doesn’t bargain for gun-runners supplying arms to insurrectionists in a France on the edge of revolution, for a sadistic French royalist spy, or for a secret militia of English vigilantes.
Kinsman is assisted by his friend and researcher Frank Barber, a manumitted slave and Dr Johnson’s former manservant, and by his stolid watchman, Dudley Netherford. But their probing is hampered by corrupt patronage, family secrets and political intrigue.
Their investigation leads to a climax as taut as the hydrogen balloon around which it takes place, and to a twist in the tail just as explosive.
