The Scent of Death

The Scent of Death
Andrew Taylor

*WINNER of the Ellis Peters Historical Dagger Award 2013*‘Andrew Taylor wrote superb historical fiction long before Hilary Mantel was popular’ Daily TelegraphFrom the No.1 bestselling author of THE AMERICAN BOY comes a new historical thriller set during the American War of Independence.August, 1778. British-controlled Manhattan is a melting pot of soldiers, traitors and refugees, surrounded by rebel forces as the American War of Independence rages on.Into this simmering tension sails Edward Savill, a London clerk tasked with assessing the claims of loyalists who have lost out during the war.Savill lodges with the ageing Judge Wintour, his ailing wife, and their enigmatic daughter-in-law Arabella. However, as Savill soon learns, what the Wintours have lost in wealth, they have gained in secrets.The murder of a gentleman in the slums pulls Savill into the city’s underbelly. But when life is so cheap, why does one death matter? Because making a nation is a lucrative business, and some people cannot afford to miss out, whatever the price…

Praise for The Scent of Death

‘Andrew Taylor has been quietly producing superb historical fiction since long before Hilary Mantel’s Man Booker wins bestowed literary respectability on the genre … He has the first-rate historian’s ability to channel the spirit of his period and let it speak for itself, combined with a masterly command of plotting and pace. His hair’s-breadth-escape set pieces are superb’

Daily Telegraph

‘Andrew Taylor’s epic historical detective novel is an absorbing and harrowing tale of the last part of America under British rule … The 18th century voice is beautifully achieved: Taylor is as good at this period as C J Sansom is at Tudor England, and like him pulls off novels that work both as literary fiction and detective stories … The mud, blood, corruption and cruelty of early Manhattan ratchet up the suspense’

Independent

‘The narrative unfolds with a leisurely confidence that allows unhurried opportunities for character and motivation to emerge. As the plot satisfyingly thickens to take in profiteering, and love and sex across the racial divide, Taylor once again shows how skilful a historical novelist he is’

Sunday Times

‘Andrew Taylor is an expert in the realm of murder and mystery fiction … The Scent of Death is a triumph of genre plotting: a detective story, and a piece of period writing that excites and surprises in equal measure … Taylor recognizes that successful page-turners come from the author removing himself from view and simply concentrating on telling a story that keeps readers interested to the end. In this respect, The Scent of Death undoubtedly and thrillingly succeeds’

Spectator

‘Andrew Taylor’s historical crime fiction is always an event. Ten years ago The American Boy, a gothic tale of the young Edgar Allan Poe in Regency England, deservedly won him a second CWA Historical Dagger. The Anatomy of Ghosts, from 2010, was both rambunctious and chilling, stripping away the demure veneer of Cambridge to reveal a wilder, and weirder, underside. Now he turns to Manhattan, although not as we know it’

Guardian

‘Taylor has emerged as an historical novelist with a rare gift for mood and atmosphere – especially the 18th century’

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‘Andrew Taylor is one of the most imaginative historical mystery novelists writing today. Expect this to appear on a lot of “Best Of 2013” lists’

Globe and Mail

ANDREW TAYLOR

The Scent of Death

Copyright

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Harper

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

77–85 Fulham Palace Road,

Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2013

Copyright © Andrew Taylor 2013

Prelims map credit © Nicolette Caven 2013

Cover layout © HarperCollinsPublishers 2013

Cover photographs © Roy Bishop / Arcangel Images (iron gate); Jill Battaglia / Arcangel Images (figure); Shutterstock (house)

Designed by www.emma-rogers.com (http://www.emma-rogers.com)

Andrew Taylor asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007213535

Ebook Edition © 18 July 2013 ISBN: 9780007493074

Version: 2014-07-17

To Will with love

Table of Contents

Praise for The Scent of Death (#u0b586d5f-4aba-5bba-96e2-d71d2923a6bd)

Title Page (#u1ffa4923-38b3-51e2-a521-564f76c60cc2)

Copyright (#ub8e4dd10-4b9a-54ff-99b0-4aa9195ceb3c)

Dedication (#u2c904e57-8ed1-5056-a1dc-322cc07191f1)

Map (#uc85faa5b-2b21-5e3e-ae71-75e4294807e8)

Chapter One (#u0ac2d2c1-8719-5fbe-b3af-0043f5856a9e)

Chapter Two (#u171afd88-3989-56a0-890e-a272a5a35864)

Chapter Three (#uaa4064df-0c52-5d63-ac3e-4b64a8f8a27b)

Chapter Four (#ud048c764-761b-5981-8929-5ecee51b3b15)

Chapter Five (#uf3feab3c-4288-54f6-bc8c-40de9f7fdad0)