Andrew Taylor 2-Book Collection: The American Boy, The Scent of Death
Two historical thrillers from the award-winning and bestselling Andrew Taylor. ‘Taylor wrote superb historical fiction long before Hilary Mantel was popular’ Daily TelegraphTHE AMERICAN BOY: England 1819: Thomas Shield, a new master at a school just outside London, is tutor to a young American boy and the child’s sensitive best friend, Charles Frant. Helplessly drawn to Frant’s beautiful, unhappy mother, Thomas becomes entwined in their family’s affairs.When a brutal murder takes place in London’s seedy backstreets, it is not certain who either the victim or the killer is. But all clues seem to lead back to the Frant household, and Shield is tangled in a web of lies, money, sex and death that threatens to tear his new life apart.And what of the strange American boy at the heart of these macabre events – what is the dark secret of young Edgar Allan Poe?THE SCENT OF DEATH: August, 1778. British-controlled Manhattan is a melting pot of soldiers, traitors and refugees, surrounded by rebel forces as the American War of Independence rages on.Into this simmering tension sails Edward Savill, a London clerk tasked with assessing the claims of loyalists who have lost out during the war.Savill lodges with the ageing Judge Wintour, his ailing wife, and their enigmatic daughter-in-law Arabella. However, as Savill soon learns, what the Wintours have lost in wealth, they have gained in secrets.The murder of a gentleman in the slums pulls Savill into the city’s underbelly. But when life is so cheap, why does one death matter? Because making a nation is a lucrative business, and some people cannot afford to miss out, whatever the price…
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THE AMERICAN BOY & THE SCENT OF DEATH
Andrew Taylor
Harper
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
77–85 Fulham Palace Road
Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2015
Copyright © Andrew Taylor 2015
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2015
Andrew Taylor asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it, while at times based on historical fact, are the work of the author’s imagination.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Ebook Edition © JANUARY 2015 ISBN: 9780008108618
Version: 2015-01-05
Contents
Copyright
Sneak peek at The Silent Boy
About the Author
By Andrew Taylor
About the Publisher
THE AMERICAN BOY
Andrew Taylor
Harper
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
77–85 Fulham Palace Road
Hammersmith
London W6 8JB
First published in Great Britain by Flamingo 2003
Copyright © Andrew Taylor 2003
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2013
Cover photographs © Sally Mundy / Arcangel Images (iron gate); Getty Images (townhouse); Shutterstock.com (textured background); Mark Owen / Trevillion Images (boy)
Designed by: www.emma-rogers.com
Andrew Taylor asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Ebook Edition © December 2012 ISBN: 9780007380985
Version: 2015-01-05
For Sarah and William. And, as always, for Caroline.
I would not, if I could, here or to-day, embody
a record of my later years of unspeakable
misery, and unpardonable crime.
From “William Wilson” by Edgar Allan Poe
N.B. The names underlined are of those members of the family who were alive in September 1819
8th September 1819 – 23rd May 1820
We owe respect to the living, Voltaire tells us in his Première Lettre sur Oedipe, but to the dead we owe only truth. The truth is that there are days when the world changes, and a man does not notice because his mind is on his own affairs.
I first saw Sophia Frant shortly before midday on Wednesday the 8th of September, 1819. She was leaving the house in Stoke Newington, and for a moment she was framed in the doorway as though in a picture. Something in the shadows of the hall behind her had made her pause, a word spoken, perhaps, or an unexpected movement.
What struck me first were the eyes, which were large and blue. Then other details lodged in my memory like burrs on a coat. She was neither tall nor short, with well-shaped, regular features and a pale complexion. She wore an elaborate cottage bonnet, decorated with flowers. Her dress had a white skirt, puffed sleeves and a pale blue bodice, the latter matching the leather slipper peeping beneath the hem of her skirt. In her left hand she carried a pair of white gloves and a small reticule.
