Книги, похожие на «Robert Thorogood, Death Knocks Twice»

1820s Britain: after the wars with France, when unemployment was high and soldiers could be paid off, when the government was desperately afraid of social unrest, any crime was drastically punished and thousands were hung. But one could petition the King and an investigation might ensue…The man in the dark cell in Newgate Prison was due to hang in a week. He had been found guilty of murdering the aristocrat whose portrait he was painting. He claimed to be innocent – but then the hangman had never hung a guilty man, he said. But even in 1820, the Home Secretary could occasionally use his powers to grant mercy if his investigator found cause and Rider Sandman, once of the First Foot Guards, is given the job.Rider Sandman, a hero of Waterloo, has family debts to repay but when his first steps in the investigations produce a sizeable bribe to look the other way, this only arouses his smouldering anger over the condition of England, a country which he and others in Wellington's army had fought to preserve. Stepping between gentlemen's clubs and taverns, talking to aristocrats, fashionable painters, their models, and their mistresses, dodging professional cut-throats and deceptive swordsmen, Sandman uncovers a conspiracy of silence, a group whose proudest boast was that they would do anything for any one of them.Sandman is a wonderful character, as yet undaunted by the sleazy streets, dank jails or the looming scaffold, and uncorrupted by politicians, sneering gentlemen or frightening bruisers, an investigator in the making and a brilliant, but very different, hero for all Bernard Cornwell fans.

Three classic Richard Sharpe adventuresRichard Sharpe and the Siege of Badajoz, January to April 1812It is a hard winter. For Richard Sharpe it is the worst he can remember. He has lost command to a man who could buy the promotion Sharpe covets. His oldest enemy, the ruthless and indestructible Hakeswill, joins the regiment and he is a man with a mission to ruin Sharpe.Richard Sharpe and the Salamanca Campaign, June and July 1812Sharpe is once again at war. But this time his enemy is just one man – the ruthless Colonel Leroux. Sharpe’s mission is to safeguard El Mirador, a spy whose network of agents is vital to British victory.Richard Sharpe and the Defence of Portugal, Christmas 1812Newly promoted, Major Richard Sharpe is given the task of rescuing a group of well-born women, held hostage high in the mountains by a rabble of deserters. And one of the renegades is Sergeant Hakeswill, Sharpe’s bitter enemy.

Richard Sharpe returns to England to save the regiment.Major Sharpe’s men are in mortal danger – not from the French, but from the bureaucrats of Whitehall. Unless reinforcements can be brought from England, the regiment will be disbanded.Determined not to see his regiment die, Sharpe returns to England and uncovers a nest of high-ranking traitors, any of whom could utterly destroy his career with a word. Sharpe is forced into the most desperate gamble of his life – and not even the influence of the Prince Regent may be enough to save him.Soldier, hero, rogue – Sharpe is the man you always want on your side. Born in poverty, he joined the army to escape jail and climbed the ranks by sheer brutal courage. He knows no other family than the regiment of the 95th Rifles whose green jacket he proudly wears.