Author(s): Antonia Hodgson

Historical

I had spent three years at Oxford studying to join the clergy. Three years of rising at dawn to pray, daily seminars in classics, divinity and logic, before rushing back to church for evening prayers and finally to bed. Unfortunately, it was in that gap between evening prayers and bed where I was tested; and failed magnificently. If only God had put fewer hours in the day. And not invented twins.' It's 1727. Tom Hawkins is damned if he's going to follow in his father's footsteps and become a country parson. Not for him a quiet life of prayer and propriety. His preference is for wine, women and cards. But there's a sense of honour there too, and Tom won't pull family strings to get himself out of debt - not even when faced with the appalling horrors of London's notorious debtors' prison: The Marshalsea Gaol. Offered the opportunity to free himself by solving a murder, Tom finds his principles tested to the limit. He is forced to navigate a new world of hitherto unimaginable corruption and violence...