London, the 1720s. Welcome to 'Romeville', the underworld of that great
city. The financial crash caused by the South Sea Bubble sees the rise
of Jonathan Wild, self-styled 'Thief-taker General' who purports to keep
the peace while brutally controlling organised crime.
Only two
people truly defy him: Jack Sheppard, apprentice turned house-breaker,
and his lover, the notorious whore and pickpocket Edgworth Bess.From the
condemned cell at Newgate, Bess gives her account of how she and Jack
formed the most famous criminal partnership of their age: a tale of lost
innocence and harsh survival, passion and danger, bold exploits and
spectacular gaol-breaks - and of the price they paid for rousing the mob
of Romeville against its corrupt master. Bess dictates her narrative to
Billy Archer, a Grub Street hack and aspiring poet who has rubbed
shoulders with Defoe and Swift. But he also inhabits that other
underworld of 'molly-houses' and 'unnameable sin', and has his own story
of subterfuge, treachery and doomed romance to deliver.
As the gallows casts its grim shadow, who will live to escape the Fatal Tree?
The Fatal Tree - Jake Arnott
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£8.99