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Amazon.co.uk Review
By setting Gallows Thief in the Regency period, Bernard Cornwell is able to use his customary skills of characterisation and razor-sharp plotting against a vividly realised new backdrop.
It is Britain in the 1820s. After the wars with France, with unemployment high and soldiers paid off, the government lives in mortal fear of social unrest. The solution is draconian punishment for any crime, and thousands die on the gallows. But despite this, it was possible to petition the King and instigate an investigation. Cornwell's new hero Rider Sandman is a hero of Waterloo struggling to repay his family debts when he becomes involved in the case of a man waiting to be hanged in Newgate prison. Given the job by the Home Secretary of investigating the man's guilt or innocence, Sandman finds himself knee-deep in labyrinthine plots involving bribes, sedition and a massive conspiracy of silence. As this suggests, the contemporary parallels are never far away.
The world Cornwell has conjured for us is as richly drawn as any in his distinguished career: gentlemen's clubs and taverns, haughty aristocrats, fashionable painters and their mistresses, and professional cut-throats; all this creates a heady melange that is just as impressive as anything in Cornwell's Sharpe series. --Barry Forshaw --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
‘Bernard Cornwell is a literary miracle. Year after year, hail, rain, snow, war and political upheavals fail to prevent him from producing the most entertaining and readable historical novels of his generation…Cornwell at his best is utterly compelling. And this is Cornwell at his best.’ Daily Mail
‘Page for page, sentence for sentence, scene for heart-stopping scene GALLOWS THIEF is the strongest historical novel I have read this year…he tells a cracking yarn and fills it with vivid characters and writes crisp dialogue and gets the period detail right..it is hard to stop reading…it is masterly.’ Sunday Telegraph
‘extremely powerful…Cornwell keeps one turning the pages at light infantry pace.’ Evening Standard
‘a historically colourful romp.’ The Times
‘This is the sort of beautifully crafted novel that we have come to expect from the creator of Sharpe…in the hands of Cornwell, this is a rip-roaring yarn that tips its hat to the basics of good old-fashioned storytelling.’ The Times
‘Bernard Cornwell is taking the popular historical novel to ever greater heights and this fast-moving thriller, shifting effortlessly across the social gamut of Regency England, is one of his masterpieces.’ Sunday Telegraph
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great stuff - Read it !,
By mike@iaa.co.uk (London) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Gallows Thief (Hardcover)
Bernard Cornwell, best known for the Sharpe series, also author of the Starbuck and Warlord Chronicles has extended his repertoire to the historical whodunnit.He applies his considerable skill weaving historical detail and swashbuckling adventure with political expediency and an observation on the culture of privilege. The main character, Captain Rider Sandman,is a hero of Waterloo, a cricketing legend in the making, an impoverished gentleman through the sins of his father, but above all an honest man. Sandman boarding in cheap accommodation, a "flash" house, living amongst the criminal fraternity of the day, accepts a "temporary" assignment as an investigator for the home office which has been pressurised by the Royal Family into the necessity of confirming the guilt of a convicted murderer. He has just seven days to establish that the Countess of Avebury was indeed stabbed to death by the fledgling artist she was sitting for. What follows is the work of a master, a riveting yarn packed with detail and twisting subplots, solid characterisation and an increasing realisation that time is running out for the man intended for the noose.
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A compulsive read, detail and action packed. - Read it !,
By mike@iaa.co.uk (London) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Gallows Thief (Hardcover)
Bernard Cornwell, best known for the Sharpe series, also author of the Starbuck and Warlord Chronicles has extended his repertoire to the historical whodunnit.He applies his considerable skill weaving historical detail and swashbuckling adventure with political expediency and an observation on the culture of privilege. The main character, Captain Rider Sandman, is a hero of Waterloo, a cricketing legend in the making, an impoverished gentleman through the sins of his father, but above all an honest man. Sandman, boarding in cheap accommodation, a "flash" house, living amongst the criminal fraternity of the day, accepts a "temporary assignment" as an investigator for the home office which has been pressurised by the Royal Family into the necessity of confirming the guilt of a convicted murderer. He has just seven days to establish that the Countess of Avebury was indeed stabbed to death by the fledgling artist she was sitting for. What follows is the work of a master storyteller, a riveting yarn packed with detail and twisting subplots, solid characterisation and an increasing realisation that time is running out for the man intended for the noose.
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A tale of rough justice and the abuse of human rights,
By Sally-Anne "mynameissally" (Leicestershire, United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Gallows Thief (Hardcover)
The title, "Gallows Thief" refers to a person who robs the gallows of victims to hang, not to a thief who gets hanged. The hero, Captain Sandman, an ex-soldier, (poor and desperate for work) has been offered a job that he isn't qualified for but he can't refuse because he needs the money. The King's wife has made waves regarding a convicted murderer who is soon to be hanged. It's all very inconvenient for the home office so they need someone to investigate and (most importantly) to confirm the felon's guilt. It's not about justice; it's about order. Sandman doesn't see it that way. He's shocked at the casual way people are convicted and sentenced to hang on the basis of very little, if any, evidence. He doesn't like the man whose guilt he is employed to confirm but he becomes convinced that the man is innocent, so he sets out to prove that the conviction was unsafe. He has one week to achieve his goal, before the sentence is carried out. There are forces working to undermine his efforts but he manages to get a very small but effective team to help him. He's a determined man but the odds seem to be stacked against him.Bernard Cornwell goes to a lot of trouble to get his historical details correct and he has a nice, easy to read, writing style. The result is, that he writes good books and once a person has read one of his books, it is likely they will want to read others. This is the 4th of his books that I've read. I enjoyed it, but I enjoyed the other 3 more. The story was good and the historical details seemed convincing, as you would expect. However, it seemed a little bit too dependent on coincidences and the final outcome teetered on one person's phobia that seemed far too convenient. Having said that, this book proved one thing to me. It is often said (usually in a complaining tone) that you can't enjoy a book if you aren't able to like the characters. I didn't like any of the characters in this book (except for one right at the end - a man sentenced to hang for stealing one small item) but then they probably wouldn't have seemed nice to people like us, living in this age in an affluent, liberal society. Life was hard then and a hard life makes hard people. If one of the soft people living in our society today were to be transported back to the early 19th century for a couple of days, they might well need to be in weekly therapy for a couple of years to get over the horror of it all. Cornwell has captured that squalor and harshness. Dickens would probably have been impressed.
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