Thief-taker Simon Westow remembers the years of punishment and torture he'd received as a child working in the mill, a prisoner of the workhouse. When his friend, Dr. Hey, has him read the report of two young boys who died at the hand of a mill overseer, it brings Simon back to those memories. A man is pulled from the river with his throat slit and one hand removed. Simon and his assistant Jane are drawn into a dark and dangerous case of fighting for justice against the town's most powerful and wealthy men.
The strength of Nickson's book, and his series, are the characters. Simon may be tough, but it's Simon's wife Rosie, and his assistant Jane, who truly stand out. One doesn't know how realistic they'd have been for the time, but they are wonderful here. Jane, the most dimensional of all the characters, while being someone truly terrifying—small reminders of Alan Bradley's Flavia de Luce, but far more dangerous—also shows great compassion and love. Jane's relationship with Mrs. Shields, the elderly lady with whom she lives, and her growth at the end, is heartwarming.
The story moves between Simon and Jane. Rather than disruptive, as this style can be, it is seamless under Nickson's pen as there is no disruption of time.
The depiction of the period is stark. This isn't the charm of drawing rooms and balls. This shows the realities of the beginnings of industrialization, child labor, and poverty—"…a desperately poor area…a court where the piss and shit settled ankle deep. No clean air, everything coated in grime and soot…nothing was ever going to stay clean for more than five minutes around here."
This was a time when a breath of sickness could decimate one's life; when thief-takers took the cases in which the authorities weren't interested and when "justice" was harsh and unmerciful, and when the rich and powerful were in control—"It's never going to change until the laws gives them no option. Even then, they'll try to find a way around it. The rich will grow richer and the poor will stay desperate."
Beyond the harshness, the author includes an element of thoughtfulness—"All the dead. What has happened to their souls? He wondered. Where had they gone? Heaven? Hell? Or was there nothing at all?" One can tell that Nickson, who lives in Leeds, has done thorough research on his city and the time.
THE BLOOD COVENANT is a hard, violent book with excellent suspense set in a hard, violent time. After all, as Nickson says in his worth-reading Afterword: "History is cruel." However, the book is honest and the principal characters are sympathetic and compelling.
THE BLOOD COVENANT (HistMys-Simon Westow/Jane-Leeds, England-1823)
Chris Nickson – 4th in series
Severn House, Mar 2022, 224 pp.
Rating: VG+/A
Beyond the harshness, the author includes an element of thoughtfulness—"All the dead. What has happened to their souls? He wondered. Where had they gone? Heaven? Hell? Or was there nothing at all?" One can tell that Nickson, who lives in Leeds, has done thorough research on his city and the time.
THE BLOOD COVENANT is a hard, violent book with excellent suspense set in a hard, violent time. After all, as Nickson says in his worth-reading Afterword: "History is cruel." However, the book is honest and the principal characters are sympathetic and compelling.
THE BLOOD COVENANT (HistMys-Simon Westow/Jane-Leeds, England-1823)
Chris Nickson – 4th in series
Severn House, Mar 2022, 224 pp.
Rating: VG+/A
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This sounds like a very atmospheric sort of story, L.J.. And I do like a story that has a sense of place and time. I don't always go for hard, violent stories, but as you point out, that is the reality of those times. So it's only realistic that they'd be portrayed that way.
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