Jack, Knave and Fool - (Sir John Fielding) by Bruce Alexander (Paperback)

About the Book

Sir John Fielding returns in this story, which the critics have called colorful, evocative, and vibrant. When a jolly earl drops dead and a severed head washes ashore on the banks of the Thames, Fielding and his assistant embark on an investigation through the seediest and grandest areas of London.

Book Synopsis

In this fifth Sir John Fielding mystery, the legendary eighteenth-century London judge takes on his most difficult case to date. John Fielding was famous not only as cofounder of London's first police force, the Bow Street Runners, but also as a magistrate of keen intellect, fairness and uncommon detective ability. What made this all the more remarkable was that he was blind. Now the blind magistrate and his young assistant and ward, Jeremy Proctor, face a baffling pair of deaths. A lord dies suddenly while attending a concert. A disembodied head washes up on the banks of the Thames. While investigating both, Sir John and Jeremy learn more than they ever cared to about family, greed, deception, and the peculiar nature of homicide, high and low.

"This is a wonderful series . . . In addition to giving us a marvelous parade of Georgian-era high and low characters in the London of Johnson and Boswell, it is packed with history and lore, and it's altogether much fun."--Washington Post Book World

From the Back Cover

When the jolly Earl of Laningham drops dead in the middle of a Handel concert, the authorities insist he died of natural causes. But blind magistrate Sir John Fielding has a sixth sense for foul play, and instinct tells him that the Earl's sudden death was most decidedly unnatural. And when a severed head washes ashore on the banks of the Thames, Fielding and his assistant, fifteen-year-old Jeremy Proctor, have yet another baffling crime to solve. Their investigation of the two deaths will take them from the streets of London's seediest neighborhoods to the living rooms of its stateliest mansions -- for murderers come from all walks of life...

Review Quotes

"This is a wonderful series...In addition to giving us a marvelous parade of Georgian-era high and low characters in the London of Johnson and Boswell, it is packed with history and lore, and it's altogether much fun".

-- Washington Post Book World

About the Author

Bruce Alexander is the pseudonym for a well-known author of fiction and nonfiction. The books in his series include Blind Justice; Murder in Grub Street (named by the New York Times Book Review as a notable book in 1995); Watery Grave; Person or Persons Unknown (named by the Chicago Tribune as one of the best novels of 1997); Jack, Knave and Fool; and Death of a Colonial.