It is 1817 and the Old Bailey is one of London's busiest streets, for it is there, in front of Newgate Prison, that the crowds gather to watch the death throes of men and women on the gallows.

Charles Corday, a portrait painter, has only seven days to live. He has been found guilty of murder, the murder of a Countes whom he was in the process of painting. He had been senenced to hang.

But political pressures make it expedient for the Home Office to confirm his guilt. The man appointed to carry out this investigation is Rider Sandman, whose qualifications for the job are non-existent. He was a soldier, her fought at Waterloo and he is famous as a cricketer, but now he is down on his luck. The offer of even a temporary post, promising a generous fee for not much effort, seems ideal.

But when Rider Sandman begins his investigations, travelling from the stinking depths of Newgate to the perfumed drawing rooms of the aistocracy, he finds too much information that does not fit the verdict, and too many people determined to halt his activities.

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