Gallows Thief

Impecunious Rider Sandman, a hero of Waterloo and a famous cricket bowler, is asked to investigate a murder for which an innocent man will hang in a week if the investigation fails. In a police procedural before there were such things, Sandman has to invent a profession as well as catch a killer. This is probably fun on the page, but in the ears it's a complete hoot. As Rider goes swashbuckling across Regency England, Sean Barrett brings his compatriots to life--from Lord Alexander, a rich friend from Oxford days who's a sort of cricket-mad Bertie Wooster, to the hoydens of the demimonde Rider now inhabits. Love the whining hangman who feels he deserves an assistant. Let's hope this is the first of many. B.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

April 29, 2002
Fans of Cornwell's gallant up-from-the-ranks rifleman, Richard Sharpe, will welcome the upright Captain Rider Sandman, a veteran, like Sharpe, of Waterloo and the Peninsula campaign, in a mystery that highlights the horrors of capital punishment in Regency England. Compelled as a civilian to play cricket to earn a bare living in the wake of his disgraced father's financial ruin and suicide, Sandman can hardly refuse the Home Secretary's job offer of looking into the case of Charles Corday, a portrait painter convicted of murdering the Countess of Avebury. Since Corday's mother has the ear of Queen Charlotte, someone has to go through the motions of confirming Corday's guilt before he goes to the scaffold. Sandman, though, soon realizes that the man is innocent, and to prove it he has to locate a servant girl who was a likely witness to the countess's murder and has now disappeared. Sandman's investigation leads him to confront the corrupt and decadent members of London's Seraphim Club, but fortunately his reputation as a brave battlefield officer turns into allies any number of ex-soldier ruffians who might otherwise have given him trouble. The suspense mounts as Sandman must race the clock to prevent a miscarriage of justice at the nail-biting climax. An unresolved subplot involving our hero's ex-fiancée, who still loves him despite his fall into poverty, suggests that Sandman will be back for further crime-solving adventures. Traditional historical mystery readers should cheer. (May 5)Forecast:Since the Sharpe series already has a strong following among mystery fans, it should be easy for Cornwell to build on that audience if this is indeed the start of a new crime series. He is also the author of two other historical series, the Nathaniel Starbuck Chronicles and the Warlord Chronicles.

Rider Sandman, the government's investigator, believes a painter due to hang in a week is innocent of murder. His investigation sparks a race for proof that will last until the hour of execution. James Frain reads with a somber tone that adds tension and menace to Sandman's quest. His readings of the hanging scenes that open and close the novel are harrowing, as are details emphasizing the cruelty of English prisons of the post-Napoleonic era in general and the gallows in particular. The abridgment is effective, preserving both historical details and the murder plot. The novel works both as a thriller and as a glimpse of life in England shortly after the French Wars. J.A.S. (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine

March 1, 2011

This first-ever unabridged audio recording of Cornwell's (www.bernardcornwell.net) 2002 novel introduces the character of Capt. Rider Sandman, who is unwittingly forced to investigate the cruelties of capital punishment at Newgate Prison in 1817 London. Fresh from the Battle of Waterloo, Sandman is exposed to the corrupt and unfair penal system with the case of Charles Corday, a painter awaiting hanging for a murder he didn't commit. Cornwell elevates the somewhat predicable plot line through his vivid descriptions, characterizations, pacing, and attention to political details. Actor/narrator Sean Barrett skillfully voices characters of different classes and backgrounds. For historical fiction fans. [Cornwell "weaves the ambience and issues of the day...with a gripping plot and a memorable character," read the review of the HarperCollins hc, LJ 4/15/02.--Ed.]--Joyce Kessel, Villa Maria Coll., Buffalo

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