The Barrister and the Letter of Marque

 55654557

The Barrister and the Letter of Marque

Todd M. Johnson

Bethany House

 As a barrister in 1818 London, William Snopes has witnessed firsthand the danger of only the wealthy having their voices heard, and he's a strong advocate who defends the poorer classes against the powerful. That changes the day a struggling heiress, Lady Madeleine Jameson, arrives at his door.

In a last-ditch effort to save her faltering estate, Lady Jameson invested in a merchant brig, the Padget. The ship was granted a rare privilege by the king's regent: a Letter of Marque authorizing the captain to seize the cargo of French traders operating illegally in the Indian Sea. Yet when the Padget returns to London, her crew is met by soldiers ready to take possession of their goods and arrest the captain for piracy. And the Letter--the sole proof his actions were legal--has mysteriously vanished.

Moved by the lady's distress, intrigued by the Letter, and goaded by an opposing solicitor, Snopes takes the case. But as he delves deeper into the mystery, he learns that the forces arrayed against Lady Jameson, and now himself, are even more perilous than he'd imagined

When I first got this book and saw that it was a rather thick one, I planned to spread my reading out over a couple of days- especially when I first started it and found the beginning to be pretty slow-moving. Yet, the further I got, the more engrossed I became...and I ended up finishing it in a single day.

Courtroom/law thrillers can be a little hit-or-miss with me, but by the last third of this book I couldn't turn the pages quickly enough! It definitely has a Dickinsian feel in its content, setting, and plot, which I LOVED. Really, my only complaints are some minor historical inaccuracies (at least, the ones I noticed were "minor"- I know nothing about nineteenth century law, so I can't comment on that). 


However, overall this book was honestly a pretty brilliant surprise from an author I hadn't read before, and I look forward to his future books (especially if they're historical fiction, since contemporary stuff isn't really my jam)

I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

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