The Last Days of Newgate - Andrew Pepper [0]
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
PART I
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
PART II
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
PART III
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
EPILOGUE
Acknowledgements
‘The main character is a Bow Street Runner who is investigating three brutal murders in St Giles, London. He crosses powerful people, ends up in Newgate prison heading for the gallows, has the help of a headstrong aristocratic beauty . . . A story of high intrigue and low politics, brutal murder and cunning conspiracies . . . Tangy and rambunctious stuff ’
Peter Guttridge, Observer
‘The novel drips with all the atmospheric detail of a pre-Victorian murder mystery - “pea soupers”, dingy lanterns and laudanum’
John Cooper, The Times
‘Pyke is violent, vengeful and conflicted in the best tradition of detectives. His story takes in grisly murder and torture, and uses 1800s London in the same way that hard-boiled fiction uses Los Angeles as a mirror of a corrupt society’
Jerome de Groot, Time Out
‘This is an excellent, atmospheric mystery . . . it is the character of Pyke that is of greatest interest. I struggle to find anyone to compare with him, with the possible exception of Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley. He is an anti-hero who intends to prove his innocence at whatever cost. But his acts can be heroic - and there is no lack of morality in the book. The final chapter hints at the impact of some of the compromises made. I can’t wait for the sequel’ Crimesquad.com
‘This excellent debut . . . is the first of a promised series, and Andrew Pepper and Pyke both deserve to be watched out for’
Toronto Globe and Mail
‘Gripping and atmospheric’
Daily Express
‘He creates a vision of London for 1829 so atmospheric that it is almost possible to feel the fog enveloping your face, to smell the stench from the gutters and feel the danger in the rookeries’
Material Witness
Andrew Pepper lives in Belfast where he is a lecturer in English at Queen’s University. The Last Days of Newgate is his first novel.
The Last Days of Newgate
ANDREW PEPPER
Orion
www.orionbooks.co.uk
A Weidenfeld & Nicolson ebook
A PHOENIX PAPERBACK
First published in Great Britain in 2006
by Weidenfeld & Nicolson
This paperback edition published in 2007
by Phoenix,
an imprint of Orion Books Ltd,
Orion House, 5 Upper St Martin’s Lane,
London WC2H 9EA
An Hachette Livre UK company
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Copyright © Andrew Pepper 2006
The right of Andrew Pepper to be identified as the author of
this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Frontispiece map courtesy of Mark Annand and Bath Spa University
http://users.bathspa.ac.uk/greenwood/
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in
any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior
permission of the copyright owner.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and
incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination
or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual
persons living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library.
eISBN : 978 0 2978 5711 2
www.orionbooks.co.uk
This ebook produced by Jouve, France
For Debbie
[T]he gulf between how one should live and how one does live is so wide that a man who neglects what is actually done for what should be done learns the way to self-destruction rather than self-preservation.
NICCOLÒ MACHIAVELLI, The Prince
PART I
London, England FEBRUARY 1829
ONE
A metallic glint preceded the thrust of a knife blade, as a voice, a female voice, shouted his name.
‘Pyke.’
It may have saved his life.
The blade drew blood on his