Emperor's Gold

In the summer of 1805, Napoleon's armies are poised across the Channel, and an invasion of England would seem to require little more than a crossing. The country is weak on land and sea, divided by politics, and uneasy with its restless labouring poor. Into this atmosphere washes a man who should not be alive. Pulled half-drowned from a shipwreck with his past wiped away, he is taken on by the Comptrollerate-General for Scrutiny and Survey, a secretive branch of the government. Tom Roscarrock finds himself dropped into a tangle of scheming and bloodshed that he barely understands.

Across the Channel, a scheme is under way to undermine what remains of England's stability. Back home, the official who recruited Roscarrock has vanished, the agents working under him keep turning up dead, and rumours of a hidden French fleet have thrown the authorities into alarm. With his own life at risk and his loyalties under suspicion, Roscarrock must follow the conspiracy across England and then over the water into the heart of Napoleon's France, where he must face the central puzzle of the affair.

The Emperor's Gold is the first book in a series of historical espionage thrillers built on records from the Comptrollerate-General's archives, which have only recently come to light.