The Thief-Taker: Memoirs of a Bow Street Runner - Tapa dura

Henry Morton, a thief-taker with England's first detective organization, the Bow Street Runners, ventures from the dark slums and alleys of Regency London to the opulent heights of English high society as he investigates the murder of a man who turned up dead in the home of an English lord. A first novel.

egency-era London comes vividly to life in T. F. Banks’s darkly atmospheric mystery. Against this enthralling backdrop — when Napoleon, Wellington, and Lord Byron ruled the world stage — and featuring a lively cast of rabble-rousers and miscreants, constables and aristocrats, The Thief-Taker weaves an unforgettable tale of jealousy, revenge, and inconsolable love.

When Henry Morton is called to the scene at Portman House in Claridge Square, the Bow Street constable finds a man dead — ostensibly of asphyxiation. He was Halbert Glendinning, a member of the Sussex Circle and a gentleman of unsullied character whose behavior was above reproach. Then why was he seen frequenting one of London’s most notorious dens of iniquity? And why has the driver of the hackney coach in which the dead man was discovered vanished into the night?

While Sir Nathaniel Conant, the chief magistrate at Number 4 Bow Street, accepts the official verdict of acci