A THIEF’S BLOOD
Douglas Skelton
(Canelo, £14.99)

Four books in, a series like Douglas Skelton’s Company of Rogues should probably feel like its various plotlines are coming to a head, but A Thief’s Blood introduces a villain odious enough to kick Jonas Flynt’s inevitable confrontation with the shadowy Fellowship, and a reckoning with his nemesis Lord McCrieff, further down the road without leaving us feeling that the storyline is being unduly prolonged.

Flynt, for those who need to catch up, is a retired soldier and highwayman recruited by his old commanding officer Colonel Nathaniel Charters into the Company of Rogues, a group of covert operatives. Quick-witted, handy in a fight and a born survivor, he is one of Charters’ most effective weapons against enemies of the state, as much as he resents being basically blackmailed into the job.

By the winter of 1718, Flynt is discovering that he has acquired an unwanted reputation. The compassion lurking beneath his cynical exterior has led to whispers on the streets of a protector of the powerless they call the Paladin, a public persona that could jeopardise his undercover activities. His relationship with former prostitute Belle, who now co-owns a brothel, has also reached a crossroads as she tires of his inability to commit to her.

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But both of those concerns must be pushed into the background when two innocent families are butchered by a particularly brutal killer. The murders chill Charters’ blood, as their savagery reminds him of a man he’d thought long dead, one Nimrod Boone. Ensuring that Flynt finds and despatches Boone becomes his top priority.

Charters, though, isn’t the only man of influence who wants Boone taken out, as gangland boss the Admiral has asked Flynt to kill him too. Another troubling development is the reappearance in London of a formidable spy named Lombre, who may be conspiring with others of their acquaintance, like Lord McCrieff or the femme fatale Christy de Fontaine.

Skelton’s 18th Century London is, as always, exquisitely rendered and thoroughly immersive. Flynt’s world is one of insalubrious taverns, dim, foul-smelling lanes and crumbling, slapdash tenements, and Skelton gives the impression that he’s scoured every archive in the city for old maps and records of the tightly-packed Georgian slums to get them just right. He also has a way of enriching the texture of this world by having the observant Flynt note the shabbiness of his characters’ grand clothing: the patching and mending of fine coats, the frayed cuffs on fancy shirts.

(Image: Canelo) It’s a sign of how far along the series is that the rough edges are starting to rub off Flynt’s relationships. He is much less of a loner and outsider than he was at the outset, building up fragile détentes, flirtatious rapports and grudging mutual tolerances to go along with his growing reputation as the most honourable of rogues.

But any fears that the series might be getting too cosy can be allayed by this instalment’s antagonist, a clever, calculating psychopath resembling a contemporary serial killer in the way he relishes the studying of his “handiwork”, and the fact that, despite suggestions of skulduggery encompassing Robert Walpole and the King, Flynt’s milieu remains the most squalid and poverty-stricken parts of London.

In a solidly-plotted historical thriller with danger lurking around every corner and intrigue brewing from the lowest dungheap to the highest palace in the land, the realisation that these murders are inflaming existing rivalries to the point where an epic confrontation is almost unavoidable raises the stakes even further. There’s no sign here that the dark and brooding Jonas Flynt’s adventures are running out of steam yet.