The Black Knight

In 1879, the British Army was embroiled in a vicious and ultimately unwinnable war in Afghanistan. Cornet William Dexter will have to endure bitter fighting at the Siege of Sherpur only to face even worse horrors, almost beyond imagination, in the snow swept mountains. Surviving against all the odds he will return to London emotionally scarred and dissolute, embarking on the road to self-destruction.
Recruited by a close friend, he agrees to work for a small division of the Home Office tackling work beyond the ability of the Police force. A man of independent means, he moves easily within the upper echelons of Victorian society whilst confidently enjoying the salacious distractions London offers. From gentlemen's clubs to sophisticated brothels his shadowy masters set him on the trail of fraudsters who are determined to carry off a massive stock market fraud.

The peace of London is shattered by the arrival of Fenian bombers who embark on their most successful campaign of terror yet. As the carnage increases, Dexter is asked to track down the bombers but also unravel the tangled web of intrigue surrounding their backers. Could it possibly be true that wealthy Englishmen are bank-rolling the bombers in an attempt to cause chaos from which they can profit for their own ends?

As Dexter comes to question the honesty of his own friends, he is forced to accept that sinister forces are at work in the shadows, hiding behind the norms of society. Only by infiltrating the heart of a violent, secretive sect can he hope to discover the true motives of those sowing the seeds of death and destruction across London.

As the truth begins to emerge, he must risk everything to thwart the most daring robbery in history, a robbery that could cause the fall of Queen Victoria herself. If the power of those that oppose him should prove too great the consequences could be fatal for him and all those he holds dear.

The Black Knight is a thrilling adventure set against the glamour and squalor of Victorian London. Gritty realism transports the reader to a world strangely paralleling our own. Dexter will take the reader from the killing fields of Afghanistan to the underground movement of London's secret sects. Moving from the priveleged world of Pall Mall's gentlemen's clubs to the brothels of Mayfair, the corrupting influence of unlimited power alongside the pleasures and indulgences of Victorian London will be laid bare.