The Blighted Cliffs [Hardcover]

Martin Jerrold is a lieutenant in the Royal Navy - the year is 1806 - and as he disgraced himself earlier at Trafalgar (lying drunk in the hold), he has been posted to a cutter called Orestes at Dover, under the command of Captain Crawlet, to catch smugglers. However, before joining, he gets drunk and is discovered with an unknown corpse at the bottom of the cliffs. The magistrate wants to hang him, but Captain Crawlet intervenes. Jerrold learns from his uncle at the admiralty that he has two weeks only to save his skin. A splendid 19th century adventure, no doubt the first of many, which is truly an exciting tale.

This is the first part of an adventure series written in the tradition of "Flashman". The key character is a naval cad called Martin Jerrold who behaves in a manner unbecoming to a person of his station.

Set in the early nineteenth century, a wonderfully entertaining, swashbuckling adventure series, with a dashing hero, for whom life - and love - rarely turn out as he intends.

Not many men emerged from Trafalgar with not an ounce of credit to their names, but through an over-reliance on rum and his habitual bad luck, Lieutenant Martin Jerrold managed it. In February 1806, he comes to Dover with one final chance to redeem his reputation. Before he has been there a day, however, he finds himself standing over a body that is too far from the cliffs to have fallen accidentally. To his horror, Jerrold is suspected of murder. His captain despises him, and the magistrate, Sir Lawrence Cunningham, wants to hang him. Only the fact that no one can identify the corpse prolongs his freedom. When word reaches Jerrold's long-suffering uncle at the Admiralty, the choice is stark: he must clear his name or be cut off without a guinea.

Somewhere in Dover's twisted streets, someone must know something. But Jerrold soon discovers that nothing is as it seems in a town where smuggling is a way of life, and where everyone from the fishermen to the colonel of dragoons drinks only the finest French brandy. And all the while, Jerrold is under suspicion, gaining sympathy only in the less-than-respectable arms of Isobel, the girl who seems - without any great effort on his part - to be becoming his mistress.

Distrusted by his superiors, set upon by intriguingly well-informed smugglers, and attacked by the French at sea, Jerrold has two weeks to save his skin - or perish in the attempt.

Edwin Thomas grew up in West Germany, Belgium and America before returning to England to study history at Lincoln College, Oxford. His conclusion to the short story 'Death by the Invisible Hand' was published in The Economist in 1997, and the first chapter of The Blighted Cliffs was runner-up in the 2001 Crime Writers' Association Début Dagger Award for new fiction. The first two installments of the adventures of Martin Jerrold, The Blighted Cliffs and The Chains of Albion, are available in Bantam paperback. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.