Boston, 1767: Revolution is brewing and intrigue swirls around firebrands. But for a thieftaker who makes his living by conjuring spells that help him solve crimes, politics is for others until he is asked to recover a necklace worn by the murdered daughter of a prominent family.

Berren has lived in the city all his life. He has made his way as a thief, paying a little of what he earns to the Fagin like master of their band. But there is a twist to this tale of a thief. One day Berren goes to watch an execution of three thieves. He watches as the thief-taker takes his reward and decides to try and steal the prize. He fails. The young thief is taken. But the thief-taker spots something in Berren. And the boy reminds him of someone as well. Berren becomes his apprentice. And is introduced to a world of shadows, deceit and corruption behind the streets he thought he knew. Full of richly observed life in a teeming fantasy city, a hectic progression of fights, flights and fancies and charting the fall of a boy into the dark world of political plotting and murder this marks the beginning of a new fantasy series for all lovers of fantasy - from fans of Kristin Cashore to Brent Weeks.

The historical literature of political deviance is sparse. This unusual work, chronicling the history of Jonathan Wild, represents an effort to come to terms with one of the more amazing characters of English social history. Wild was both part of the policy system in eighteenth-century England, and also one of the most adroit criminals of the age. In the 1720s, London suffered the worst crime waves in its history. Civic corruption took place on a staggering scale. The government's answer was to pay a bounty for the capture of robbers, thus creating a class of professional informers. Wild was applauded as the most efficient thief hunter and gang breaker in British society; but his own posse of thief catchers was basically a front behind which he was able to control the underground world, through a complex system of blackmail, perjury, and terror which the book details. All who opposed him were betrayed to the law, and in the struggle for power Wild sacrificed several hundred of his own people to the hangman. No one since his time, with the exception of Lavrenti Beria of the late Stalin era GPU so nearly succeeded in bringing the underworld under the control of one system of power. At one level, this is a biography of the world's first supercriminal. At another, it is a sociology of criminal behavior and its political consequences. Howson sheds fresh light, not only on a figure who has become famous in literature, but more important, on the entire structure of gang life. The book is written "as a "terrifying and fascinating study of a historical epoch; it also offers a completely fresh picture of the birth of modern organized-crime families as part of modern organized political systems.

Hidden in London is a legendary power. A fabled chest guards secrets more precious than gold. But in 1666 secrets are deadly, and London is burning... Charlie Tuesday is the city's best thief taker. But one case still eludes him, a mysterious key entrusted by the mother he barely knew. The key opens a chest of priceless papers--papers said to hold the dark alchemy of a lost Brotherhood. As flames ravage the city, the thief taker must track the chest into London's blackest heart, where smugglers trade and sorcerers conjure. What Charlie begins to unravel is more ancient and powerful than he ever dreamed. But time is running out and fire is the greatest purge of all. This is the second book in the Thief Taker Series but can be enjoyed as a stand-alone story.

Murder. Abduction. An attic full of frightened children. London, 1810. The industrial revolution roars across England like a steam locomotive. Cotton mills and factories rake in profits thanks to cheap labor. Not from illicit African slave trade—but by enslaving little children. When young Harry is lured from home with a penny, he can hardly believe his luck. Now he can help his widowed mother put food on the table. But Harry doesn't return home. Just another victim from the slums. Until Peter Frobisher takes on the case. Frobisher has his own dark past. He's a 'thief taker,' a bounty hunter of sorts. He tracks down criminals for a living, so finding a child should be easy. But the more Frobisher unravels, the more sinister the reality becomes. The trail leads Frobisher away from the city, onto the English canal network, and beyond to Derbyshire. When a dead body turns up, what started as a missing child case becomes a hunt for survival. Author Joan Sumner spins adventure and mystery into The Thief Taker's Trek—a meticulously researched tale of London's industrial boom and the dark side of prosperity. About the Author Joan Sumner, MBA (Dundee)and Fellow of Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, has a working background across the private, public, and voluntary sectors. Semi-retired, she has settled in Midlothian, Scotland to write, closer to family and friends. An award winning historical novelist, Joan formerly contributed self-help articles to a national weekly. Her travel abroad articles and occasional BBC radio contributions mostly starred her vintage MGB car. Joan's small garden hosts a family of hedgehogs, giving enjoyment to everyone she knows! She is a member of the Society of Authors, the Edinburgh Writers’ Club, and the National Trust for Scotland. She paints, plays tennis and golf, and loves to travel - particularly by car. But her passion is weaving mystery stories around little known historical facts. Author Website: www.joansumner.com

After the Glorious Revolution, a not so glorious age of lawlessness befell England. Crime ran rampant, and highwaymen, thieves, and prostitutes ruled the land. Execution by hanging often punished the smallest infractions, and rip-roaring stories of fearless criminals proliferated, giving birth to a new medium: the newspaper. In 1724, housebreaker Jack Sheppard—a “pocket Hercules,” his small frame packed with muscle—finally met the hangman. Street singers sang ballads about the Cockney burglar because no prison could hold him. Each more astonishing than the last, his final jailbreak took him through six successive locked rooms, after which he shimmied down two blankets from the prison roof to the street below. Just before Sheppard swung, he gave an account of his life to a writer in the crowd. Daniel Defoe stood in the shadow of the day’s literati—Swift, Pope, Gay—and had done hard time himself for sedition and bankruptcy. He saw how prison corrupted the poor. They came out thieves, but he came out a journalist. Six months later, the author of Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders covered another death at the hanging tree. Jonathan Wild looked every bit the brute—body covered in scars from dagger, sword, and gun, bald head patched with silver plates from a fractured skull—and he had all but invented the double-cross. He cultivated young thieves, profited from their work, then turned them in for his reward—and their execution. But one man refused to play his game. Sheppard didn’t take orders from this self-proclaimed “thief-taker general,” nor would he hawk his loot through Wild’s fences. The two-faced bounty hunter took it personally and helped bring the young burglar’s life to an end. But when Wild’s charade came to light, he quickly became the most despised man in the land. When he was hanged for his own crimes, the mob wasn’t rooting for Wild as it had for Sheppard. Instead, they hurled stones, rotten food, and even dead animals at him. Defoe once again got the scoop, and tabloid journalism as we know it had begun.