Set in London in 1837, this is the story of Sarah Gale, a seamstress, nurse and mother, sentenced to hang for her role in the murder of Hannah Brown on the eve of her wedding.
After Sarah petitions for mercy, Edmund Fleetwood is appointed to investigate and consider whether justice has been done. Idealistic, but struggling with his own demons, Edmund is determined to seek out the truth. Yet Sarah, despite protesting her innocence, refuses to add anything to the evidence given in court: the evidence which convicted her. Edmund knows she’s hiding something, but needs to discover just why she’s maintaining her silence. For how can it be that someone would willingly go to their own death?
Teeming with the sounds and smells of London in the most visceral way, this is a terrific novel of human frailty, fear and manipulation, and of the terrible consequences of jealousy and misunderstanding.
