The Broken Token
Leeds, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, has grown prosperous on the cloth trade. It is a town of great wealth and even greater poverty. When the Constable, Richard Nottingham, is summoned to the scene of a double murder, he is shocked to find that one of the victims is a young woman who was once a much-loved family servant. Nottingham makes a personal vow to catch the killer, but, as the murderer claims further victims, he and his deputy, John Sedgwick, find themselves short of clues and they are forced to seek help from among the town’s criminal fraternity.
This is a realistic crime thriller – Nottingham makes mistakes, becomes frustrated, has lucky breaks, and allows the escapades of his rebellious younger daughter, Emily, to impinge upon his work. The author paints a vivid, olfactory portrait of Leeds, from its municipal comforts to squalid slums, and he has a marvellous ear for the nuances of Yorkshire speech and the tang of street slang.
Perhaps too pedantically, I would have preferred to see “gaol” rather than “jail”, and Sedgwick addresses Nottingham as “boss”, which in early 18th-century English was still a particularly American word, and had the connotation of “overseer”. On one occasion “Jacobin” is used to refer to the supporters of the Stuart claim to the throne instead of “Jacobite”.
Nevertheless, this is a very enjoyable, vividly characterised tale. I would be interested to see Richard Nottingham and John Sedgwick tackle further cases.
