The Thief Taker

The Thief Taker: Memoirs of a Bow Street Runner (2001) T.F. Banks
aka Ian Dennis and Sean Russell

I was browsing Sean Russell’s web page, when I saw two books listed that I didn’t own: The Thief Taker and The Emperor’s Assassin. My immediate reaction was one of shock: Sean Russell had co-written a series books? And those books were Victorian mysteries? Why on earth didn’t I have these books?!

So I remedied the situation posthaste. Unfortunately, the books arrived in the same order as several other books I’d been waiting to read, and so got set aside–not for too long, however, because this is Sean Russell after all.

Henry Morton is a thief taker for Bow Street, the precursor to Scotland Yard. He is called to the residence of Lord Arthur Darley, but his friend and sometimes mistress, the actress Arabella Malibrant, because a dead young man arrived in a carriage to Lord Arthur’s party. A doctor attending the party declares that the young man has choked to death on vomitus (Did I mention that I started reading this book at lunch?) but Henry Morton, who has seen one or two bodies in his time on Bow Street, doesn’t accept the diagnosis, and this is pulled into an enquiry of the young man’s death.

I love Victorian mysteries. As much as I love modern conveniences and the right to vote and be educated, there is something about the Victorian era that fascinates me, and Victorian mysteries are the most fascinating.

Bow Street and thief takers were precursors to Scotland Yard, and in this book some of the problems with the system of thief takers as opposed to a paid police force are delineated–namely the way that corruption could run out of control, and how the very nature of the job lead to distrust by the very populace they were supposed to protect. (If you aren’t familiar with the idea, thief takers were a bit like bounty hunters, in that they were paid when the criminals they arrested were convicted, however, they were also to patrol the streets and keep the peace.)

Henry Morton is a very interesting character. He’s an honest thief taker, who takes his job seriously, but he also aims to live the life of a gentleman, although he will never be able to achieve the status of gentleman in London society.

The book, however, is somewhat different from other Victorian mysteries that I have read, in that Henry’s relationship with Arabella is clearly a romantic one, yet one outside the bounds to marriage. The fact that she was a widow, as well as an actress, allowed her to live a life different from those of other women of the time, in that she had more freedom, although like Henry, she may have been able to live and dress like a Lady, but she certainly would not have been considered one.

Luckily, the romantic descriptions in the book are mere hugging and kissing, so I will be able to loan this book to my grandmother without worry.

It took me a couple of chapters to get into the flow of the book–I’ve been reading fantasies that moved very quickly, and Sean Russell writes stories that you should take your time with–or at least not read in a single gulp. This story was slightly faster moving than the Sean Russell books I’m used to, but about on par with what I expect for a Victorian mystery.

I very much enjoyed The Thief Taker, and heartily recommend it to fans of Victorian mysteries. The mystery moves along at a nice page, makes sense when everything is resolved, yet has an unexpected twist at the end.
Rating: 8/10

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