Author(s): Lloyd Shepherd

SECONDHAND BOOKS | Literary Fiction

The author of "The English Monster" takes us on another voyage of discovery from Kew Gardens to the island of Otaheite by way of a murder investigation. London 1812. The arrival of the Solander is something of an event among the social and cultural cognoscenti of the metropolis. After all, what could be more romantic than a restaging of Captain Cook's first voyage on the Endeavour? Hundreds of cuttings from the paradise island of Otaheite have been planted throughout the ship, intended to stock the gardens and greenhouses of Kew, the place in which English horticulture is fused with British ambition. For according to Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society, it is by owning and adapting the natural world to its own ends that Britain will shape the future of the world. Banks has asked that John Harriott, magistrate of the Thames river police, take a personal interest in the ship's security. When, one by one, members of the Solander crew are found dead in their beds, their faces twisted into hideous expressions, their sea chests ransacked, Hopkins puts detective Charles Horton in charge of the investigation. As Horton and his wife, Abigail, are drawn deeper into the twisting streets of riverside Wapping, it becomes clear that this is a story that began far from the London docks, near the foot of great Tahiti Nui, in the shadow of the dead volcano and beneath the hungry eyes of unforgiving ancient gods.

2013. A trade paperback copy in near fine condition.