Catching the Eagle: 1 (Regency Reivers Series) - Tapa dura

Easter Monday, 1809: Kirkley Hall manor house is mysteriously burgled. When suspicion falls on Jamie Charlton, he and his family face a desperate battle to save him from the gallows. When £1,157 rent money is stolen from Kirkley Hall, it is the biggest robbery Northumberland has ever known. The owner sends for Stephen Lavender, a principal officer with the Bow Street magistrate’s court in London, to investigate the crime. Suspicion soon falls on impoverished farm laborer, Jamie Charlton, and the unpopular steward, Michael Aynsley. Jamie Charlton is a loving family man but he is hot-tempered and careless. As the case grows against him, it seems that only his young brother, William, can save him from an impending miscarriage of justice. But William is struggling with demons of his own—he is falling in love with Jamie’s wife. Catching the Eagle, the first novel in the Regency Reivers series, is a fictionalized account of a trial that devastated a family and divided a community.