Company of Rogues—once more into the fray!

A Thief's Blood (Company of Rogues #4) by Douglas Skelton        

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

1718. Captain Jonas Flynt is once again caught up in Colonel Nathaniel Charters’ Company of Rogues business. 

This time a depraved murderer is slashing his way across families in the Rookeries. Whole families including children have been brutally murdered. Dubbed the Whitechapel Horror by the broadsheets, denizens of these places are angry, fearful and ready to riot. A line has been crossed.

Flynt is fearful for his loved ones (not that he’ll admit that!) like Belle St. Clare who owns a Pleasure House at Covent Gardens.

For Charters the deaths are personal. He is convinced they're the work of a man he’d sought on the eve of the battle at   Malplaquet in Flanders, one Nimrod Boone. Boone was supposedly dead. Now Charters is questioning this. He wants Jonas to investigate that and the appearance of Monsieur Lombre, another dangerous character.

Rumblings between warring factions in the Rookeries are just below the surface. Jonathan Wild and Blueskin Blake make their presence felt. A highly volatile situation.

The deaths are personal too for the Admiral, a ex-midshipman who ruthlessly dictates illegal activities at the docklands and on the river.  He’s concerned as well about the passions running high in the area.

Daniel Defoe, journalist and sometime scribbler of treatise and short works has been writing about a Paladin in the rookeries. Jonas feels a target on his back. Defoe’s newspaper articles need to stop.

Another dark and suspenseful historical mystery from Skelton!

A Canelo ARC via NetGalley.                                              

Many thanks to the author and publisher.