Thomas Hawkins

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 honor 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.

London, 1727 - and Tom Hawkins is about to fall from his heaven of card games, brothels, and coffeehouses to the hell of a debtors' prison. The Marshalsea is a savage world of its own, with simple rules: those with family or friends who can lend them a little money may survive in relative comfort. Those with none will starve in squalor and disease. And those who try to escape will suffer a gruesome fate at the hands of the gaol's rutheless governor and his cronies.

A brilliant historical crime novel of Georgian London from the author of The Devil in the Marshalsea. Spring, 1728. A young, well-dressed man is dragged through the streets of London to the gallows at Tyburn. The crowds jeer and curse as he passes, calling him a murderer. He tries to remain calm. His name is Tom Hawkins, and he is innocent. Somehow he has to prove it before the rope squeezes the life out of him.It is, of course, all his own fault. He was happy with Kitty Sparks. Life was good.

London, 1728. Tom Hawkins is headed to the gallows, accused of murder. Gentlemen don't hang, and Tom's damned if he'll be the first. He may not be much of a gentleman, but he is innocent. He just always finds his way into a spot of bad luck. It's hard to say when Tom's troubles began. He was happily living in sin with his beloved, Kitty Sparks, though their neighbors were certainly less pleased about that.

The new twisting mystery from CWA Historical Dagger 2014 winner Antonia Hodgson. Late spring, 1728, and Thomas Hawkins has left London for the wild beauty of Yorkshire - forced on a mission he can't refuse. John Aislabie, one of the wealthiest men in England, has been threatened with murder. Blackmailed into investigating, Tom must hunt down those responsible - or lose the woman he loves forever.

Autumn, 1728. Life is good for Thomas Hawkins and Kitty Sparks. The Cocked Pistol, Kitty's wickedly disreputable bookshop, is a roaring success. Tom's celebrity as 'Half-Hanged Hawkins', the man who survived the gallows, is also proving useful. Their happiness proves short-lived. When Tom is set upon by a street gang, he discovers there's a price on his head. Who on earth could want him dead - and why?