‘The Last Days of Newgate’ takes us to the violent London of 1829 and follows the fortunes of Pyke, a Bow Street Runner. The central conceit of Pepper’s book is the transplanting of the trappings of the detective novel into the early 1800s. Pyke is violent, vengeful and conflicted in the best tradition of detectives. His story takes in grisly murder and torture, and uses 1800s London in the same way that hard-boiled fiction uses Los Angeles as a mirror of a corrupt society. The novel takes place in gin palaces, and gambling dens; its cast includes a Lord and a Home Secretary as well as prostitutes and other assorted lowlife.
Pyke’s investigation of a triple murder leads him to suspect members of Parliament and to chase a conspiracy through the corridors of power. However, in his zeal he becomes implicated himself and is sent to Newgate. Pepper’s plotting is sometimes confusing, but in the end rooting a detective sensibility in pre-Victorian London works rather well.
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