Book description
William Clarence Verity, Sergeant in 'A' Division of the Metropolitan
Police, has seen most of the horrors of the nineteenth century, from the
stews of Seven Dials to the prisons of the maharajahs. Now he is sent to
the United States, to a nation on the brink of civil war, to guard two
of his country's most precious possessions: her good name, and the heir
to the throne.
Both are threatened by Verney Dacre, thought to have died in the
aftermath of the Great Train Robbery of 1857, but planning a coup to
crown his career of evil: the robbery of the US mint in Philadelphia.
'A plot as ingenious as a madman's flytrap' Observer
Francis Selwyn (a pen name of Donald Thomas) was born in Somerset and
educated at Queen's College, Taunton, and Balliol College, Oxford. He
holds a personal chair in the University of Wales, Cardiff, now Cardiff
University. His numerous crime novels include two collections of
Sherlock Holmes stories and a hugely successful historical detective
series written under the pen name Francis Selwyn and featuring Sergeant
Verity of Scotland Yard, as well as gritty police procedurals written
under the name of Richard Dacre. He is also the author of seven
biographies and a number of other non-fiction works, and won the Gregory
Prize for his poems, Points of Contact
. He lives in Bath with his wife.
