One of the finest of contemporary pop novelists here presents a suspenseful and fascinating account of a true-life Victorian caper, far richer and more absorbing than the excellent film version of 1979. Simon Prebble plays less for drama than for clarity and euphony. His measured tones give us only a hint of character and ignore the author's expert manipulation of tension. Yet there is not a false or ugly note anywhere. Indeed, through some subtle actor's magic, he simultaneously puts himself into the background and the story into the foreground. Thus, though sounding unprepossessing and remote, he grips the listener and holds him fascinated until the last word of the last chapter. Y.R. Winner of AUDIOFILE Earphones Award. © AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine--
Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
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Product Description
"A nineteenth-century version of THE STING...Crichton fascinates us."
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
In teeming Victorian London, where lavish wealth and appalling poverty live side by side, Edward Pierce charms the most prominent of the well-to-do as he cunningly orchestrates the crime of the century. Who would suspect that a gentleman of breeding could mastermind the daring theft of a fortune in gold? Who could predict the consequences of making the extraordinary robbery aboard the pride of England's industrial era, the mighty steam locomotive? Based on fact, as lively as legend, and studded with all the suspense and style of a modern fiction master, here is a classic caper novel set a decade before the age of dynamite--yet nonetheless explosive....
From the Paperback edition.