The first in a series about Sir John Fielding, the blind magistrate who founded the Bow Street Runners, London’s first pro­fes­sion­al police force in 1749. Jeremy Proctor, a newly orphaned 13-year-old, is taken under Sir John’s wing and assists him in dis­cov­er­ing how the rakish Lord Goodhope was murdered in a locked room.

Although I figured out the murderer halfway through, I still enjoyed both the plot and the characters. Alexander vividly brings Georgian London to life.