A Thief’s Blood (A Company of Rogues, 4)
It’s London in 1718, and Jonas Flynt, a ‘gambler’, is confronted with the horrific spectacle of a lowly family in a poor part of the city, butchered! Why is he there? He works – very reluctantly – for a wealthy taskmaster Colonel Charters, who seems to have a personal stake in the massacre. Also on site is Jonathan Wild – the “Thiefmaster General” and official of the judicial system.
Unusually, he too is obviously outraged by the killing of parents and two children. Finally, he’s contacted by the lonely and discrete criminal kingpin The Admiral – the dead man was his trusted (and honest) bookkeeper.
So, there it is – the political, the judicial, and the criminal world all concentrating on a disgusting attack in a poor part of the East End. And all have secrets, all have reasons for the butcher to be caught, and all expecting the most from Jonas Flynt. An ex-highwayman, ex-soldier, fighter, and spy, he’s been vicious, he’s tortured, he’s a ruthless killer – all when called upon. But when he sees the first crime scene, it becomes personal. Not because of a relationship with the victim but because of their situation. He’s sympathetic in an unsympathetic world.
What follows is Jonas travelling quietly through the dingy, dangerous world of Georgian London. If he has to kill, he will. Jonas wants the killer dead!
In this fourth in a series, Skelton manages to balance action and brutality with setting and reason. Well-written, the hero might be the cliched ‘troubled,’ but this ‘trouble’ doesn’t get in the way of his tasks. The description of place and time is vivid. The author is good at expressing the personality of the characters by reaction rather than description.
