LEVIATHAN

4.1/5 ( ratings)

An historical crime story full of mystery, murder, suspense and romance...
This historical thriller begins in the autumn of 1857, as the East End of London is preparing for the launch of Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s giant iron steamship, the Leviathan - at 32000 tons, the greatest ship the world has ever seen...

In Newgate prison, an innocent surgeon, Dr Jonathan Silver, is waiting in the condemned cell to be hanged for the murder of his wife, Marianne. Fate intervenes in the unlikely shape of a nineteen-year old thief, Elisa Saltash, who, in trying to break her burglar father free from Newgate on the eve of his execution, ends up freeing Dr Silver instead.

Silver and Elisa end up in the riverside world of Wapping, among the seething and dangerous world of the London docks. Silver has only one clue to the identity of his wife’s real killer - with her dying breath she had said to him the word “Leviathan”...

This leads Silver to suspect a former suitor of his wife’s - a marine engineer called Daniel Strode who works at the Napier shipyard on the Isle of Dogs where Brunel’s Leviathan is being readied for launching.

Silver gets a job as a carpenter at the yard, trying to find some real evidence against Daniel Strode.

On Silver’s trail are a couple of formidable human bloodhounds: Detective Sergeant Charlie Sparrow of the Shadwell and Wapping police; and an even more devious young turnkey from Newgate, James Minshall, who is determined to gain the reward on Silver’s head for himself.

Elisa soon becomes as much a fugitive as Silver when she steals a priceless pearl necklace called the Tears of the Prophet and finds her own secret life as a thief about to be exposed.

Then other young women begin to be murdered in Wapping, and the fogbound riverside streets and alleyways become a place of fear...

As the net closes around Silver, he has to try and discover the real reason behind his wife’s death, while also being drawn unwillingly into the mystery over the deaths of these other murdered women.

Silver finds himself in a race to discover the truth before he is himself recaptured. With the help of Elisa, and another equally mysterious young woman called Amy McLennan, the story reaches a climax on the day of the launch of Brunel’s Leviathan...

Set against the romantic and thrilling backdrop of London of the 1850s - the bustling centre of the greatest empire in the world, with its music halls and brothels and bare knuckle fighting - this thriller is an historical crime story full of mystery, murder, suspense and romance...