The Thistlewood Plot Author:J. G. Jeffreys "The start of it was a tidy little riot at the Tottenham Court end of Oxford Street on a strangely dark late afternoon of February...in the sorrowful winter of 1820." — and the start of it that directly involved Jeremy Sturrock in the most urgent investigation of his career as Chief Officer of the Bow Street Police Force was "an un... more »wanted, unknown, and damned unwelcome corpse" lying at the outer door of Sturrock's chambers in Soho Square. Almost a corpse, really, the dying man has life enough to gasp out a few puzzling words before he truly expires. Shots ring out, and the corpse is spirited away by unseen hands.
"A prank of that kind," Sturrock observes, "requests investigation." What is his shock, then, to discover the next morning that the new Chief Magistrate, waving a letter of complaint about Sturrock from a mysterious "lady," suspends him from the force! But the policeman is not deterred. Investigate he will, even though his only allies are his horrible clerk, Master Maggsy, and his dimwitted sporting coachman, Jagger.« less