Rapscallion

Mathew Hawkwood is a Bow Street Runner. He is rough, tough, and dangerous to know and even more dangerous to cross. When the authorities in Regency London have a serious problem Hawkwood is the man they send to sort it. He is street wise to PhD standard and fought his way through the ranks to become a captain in The Rifles. Starting to get the picture? That's right, Hawkwood is Sharpe in civvies and you can't say fairer than that. Rapscallion is the third Hawkwood adventure from the pen of James McGee and it is every bit as good as it's predecessors. French prisoners in the Napoleonic wars are sent to the Hulks, decommissioned men-of-war turned into floating prisons with a reputation for appalling conditions and reckoned escape proof. However, word has reached the Admiralty that escapes are being effected in a way that has to have an extensive organisation behind it. A young Lieutenant is sent undercover to investigate. He winds up dead. Another is sent. He disappears. It is time to send for Hawkwood. This is a first class adventure story with our hero constantly confronted by danger and death, a page turner par excellence. I look forward to Hawkwood's next outing.