Murder in Grub Street

The lusty life of London's Covent Garden‘and its diverse practitioners‘highlights the second appearance of blind Sir John Fielding, an 18th-century magistrate first met in Blind Justice. Jeremy Proctor, Sir John's 13-year-old ward, has been hired by Grub Street publisher/bookseller Ezekiel Crabb. But the night before the apprenticeship is to begin, Crabb, his family and two employees die in a hideous massacre. Houseguest and rustic poet John Clayton, found dazed with ax in hand, is taken into custody. But Fielding is not satisfied with the evidence. In pursuit of the truth, he enlists the help of the Bow Street Runners, Samuel Johnson (but not Boswell), a pickpocket, a gambler, another publisher and, of course, Jeremy. More murders and a torched synagogue lead to a band of religious zealots who have come from Monongahela in the American colonies to convert London's Jews. Still needing facts, Fielding sets a trap that snares the villains in a stunning double climax. Especially noteworthy are scenes of Sir John in action at the Bow Street Court, dispensing practical justice to Londoners high and low. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

YA‘In this sequel to Blind Justice (Putnam, 1994), 13-year-old Jeremy Proctor again teams up with Sir John Fielding, the blind magistrate and co-founder of London's first police force, this time to investigate who massacred the printer, Ezekiel Grabb, and his family and two employees the day before Jeremy was to be apprenticed to him. Acting once more as Sir John's eyes, the boy becomes ever more deeply involved in the magistrate's life and eventually earns himself a permanent place in his household. Though fiction, this book relies heavily on historic figures as its key characters. Its strength is its depiction of 18th-century London, seen through the eyes of young Jeremy, as he ranges from Grub Street to the Bedlam madhouse, from Covent Garden to London's worst slums..‘Pamela Rearden, Centreville Regional Library, Fairfax County, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

More 18th-century adventure for blind magistrate Sir John Fielding. Here, the judge's sidekick, the 13-year-old orphaned Jeremy Proctor, has been apprenticed to a well-known printer in Grub Street, Ezekiel Crabb, but the night before Jeremy is to join the Crabb household, everyone in the family is brutally murdered- -everyone, that is, except a mysterious guest, a poet named John Clayton, who sits dazed in an attic room, covered in blood but unable to explain himself. Sir John holds firm in his intentions to investigate the sensational case, ignoring cries for the immediate trial and hanging of Clayton, who seems to all but Sir John the obvious killer. But how did one man manage to kill six people in barbarous fashion without rousing the entire household or the neighbors? The lack of other circumstantial evidence also makes Sir John suspicious of the seemingly neat solution presented by Clayton. Meanwhile, as Sir John and Jeremy delve deeper, they encounter a somewhat sinister Christian brotherhood that seems to have connections to other people involved in the case, despite their protestations of innocence. The judge may be blind, but as ever he has a keen ear for prevarication and falsehood, as well as an inquiring mind and relentless passion for getting at the truth. Sir John's second bout of detection (Blind Justice, 1994) is a nifty piece of Georgian work: an intriguing puzzle plus a lively, vivid portrait of everyday life in 1769 London.