Customer Reviews
Another winner from McGee (3.5 stars) - By: N. Brett, 14 Sep 2008 
Rapscalllion is James McGee's third Hawkwood novel. Hawkwood is a bow street runner, but very much in the vein of Sharpe, & those who enjoy Bernard Cornwalll's writing will probably enjoy this too.
This is darker then the previous two & involves Hawkwood going undercover to help the Navy find two of its missing men who were investigating a prisoner smuggling ring. This involves Hawkwood going onto one of the infamous prison ships, Rapscalllion, to follow the links in the chain while trying to stay alive.
Slightly less action in this one, but a little more history - but the history (prison ships, treatment of French prisoners etc) was not something I knew much about & it was interesting to read of an unpleasant aspect of our history.
As stated,the plot has a slower pace then previous as the scene is set, but then it snowballls up as we find there is more to the scenario then just basic smuggling & can Hawkwood intervene in time to stop a plan that could impact the war with the French?
Good stuff again from Mr NcGee - roll on the next one.
Action adventure at its best. What a great read. - By: L. J. Roberts, 03 Sep 2008 
RAPSCALLION (Hist/Pol. Proc-Matthew Hawkwood-Georgian) - VG+
McGee, James - 3rd in series
Harper Collins, 2008, UK Hardcover - ISBN: 9780007212729
First Sentence: Sark stopped, sank to his knees & listened, but the only sounds he could hear were the pounding of his own heartbeat & the rasping wheeze at the back of his throat as he fought desperately to draw air into his burning lungs.
The Navy sent two officers out to investigate reports of a smuggling operation & the increase in the number of enemy prisoners who have escaped detention from their prison ships. The first investigator was found having drowned & the second hasn't been heard from.
The Home Secretary now requests the Bow Street, & Bow Street has assigned Matthew Hawkwood to go undercover aboard one of the ships. Conditions aboard ship are more vile that could be imagined & Hawkwood is soon fighting for his very life.
With each new McGee book, I am fascinated to see on what historical subject he will base his plot. The first book, "Ratcatcher," had to do with political plots & the security of the Royal Family. The second "Resurrectionist," was much darker & dealt with grave robbers. This third book focuses on the treatment of foreign prisoners of war & smuggling.
His period descriptions & historical detail make his books evocative & educational. This is high action & suspense at its best. Think Saturday matinee pirate movies. It is definitely plot, rather than character drive, but that doesn't make the characters any less interesting. It does mean you don't know whom to trust.
McGee's writing is incredibly visual, which is both good & a bit hard to deal with at time, & it is always incredibly exciting. There is a bit of "ride to the rescue" at one point, but McGee even makes that work.
This is the consummate edge-of-the-seat, great weekend read and, I think, McGee's best book so far.
Hawkwood Assists the Royal Navy - By: J. Chippindale, 04 Jul 2008 James McGee is the pseudonym of Glen Moy, who was born into an army family in 1950. He was educated in Gibraltar, Germany & Belfast, giving him a love of travel, which is evident in his meticulous, vivid portraits of diverse people & places. His varied career has included banking, bookselling, thirteen years in the airline business, & book reviewing.
This is the third novel (the other two being Ratcatcher & Ressurectionist) featuring Matthew Hawkwood, a Bow Street Runner, & a bit of a loose cannon as far as taking orders from his superior is concerned. An ex-army officer & one of the best shots in his regiment. Matthew is more used to giving orders than taking them & he is not above bringing his own form of rough justice to the slums & drinking dens of Regency London..
I must admit to enjoying this book slightly less than the previous two. I am not sure whether it is the fact that Hawkwood is taken away from his old stamping ground of the slums of London & the dross that live there, along with his old sergeant, Jago, who has helped Matthew on more than one occasion in the past. Jago the self styled king of the beggars became almost as much a part of the storyline as Matthew Hawkwood himself. The author has kept the character of Jago in the storyline but he does not feature anwhere near as prominently as before.
This book is still well worth a read & it is not necessary to have read the other two books, although they may give some relevant background information on the lead character Matthew Hawkwood. The storyline places Hawkwood in the more rural setting of the Thames estuary & involves among other things smuggling & the prison ships known as the hulks. These are the rat infested, rotten, flea ridden stinking hulls of former men-of-war converted to hold French prisoners from the Napoleonic wars. To be sent to the hulks is tantamount to a death sentence. The Royal Navy have received information that a well organised smuggling racket is taking place within the confines of the hulks & when two naval officers sent to investigate mysteriously disappear it is time to see whether Hawkwood can fare any better in a world that is as close to hell as makes no difference. The friendship struck up by Matthew & Lasseur, a French sea captain makes for a new twist to the series.
Trying Something Different - By: C. Green, 27 Jun 2008 
After an action packed debut in Ratcatcher & surviving the gothic darkness of Resurrectionist, Matthew Hawkwood, Bow Street Runner, is back in this third & once again very different adventure from James McGee.
One of the appealing things about the Hawkwood series so far is that each book has a distinct & individual feel to it. The first book was a light weight, action packed romp around Regency London whilst the second was a very much darker, blood soaked gothic affair. With Rapscalllion the feel & focus shifts once again as Matthew Hawkwood finds himself outside London in the rural backwaters of the Thames estuary & caught up in prisoners of war & smuggling. This constant shifting of subject, locales & characters between books, with only Hawkwood & a few supporting players such as Jago & Read being the constants between them, keeps the series feeling fresh & prevents them becoming too predictable. It is something McGee should be applauded for, since in this reviewer's opinion far too many series of this type come to rely on repetitive, interchangeable plots & themes, to the point where the books seem to run into one another & are hard to differentiate.
The fact that with Rapscalllion McGee doesn't quite hit the heights of the previous two books can more easily be forgiven when you consider that at least he is not simply regurgitating a slight variation on yet the same plot. Besides which, the criticisms of the book are comparatively minor. The pacing in the first third of the book feels slightly off & it takes a while for events to start to grab the reader. Again this is because McGee tries to do something a little different; setting up one apparent main plot strand before bringing it to a sudden & very unexpected conclusion & sending the whole book off in an entirely new, almost unrelated direction. Doing so keeps the reader guessing, but means that a third of the way in the whole narrative needs to be reset & a whole new group of characters has to be introduced. Inevitably this hampers the flow of the book & although the opening passages contain some evocative writing & great action readers might feel a bit cheated when the switch comes.
After the switch it takes a while for the pace to pick up again. When it does however, as with the previous books it doesn't let up. In order to find out how it ended I sat up until 1 a.m. on a work night to rattle through the last fifty pages & didn't regret my decision. Everything fans of the series expect is present. Hawkwood is his usual capable self, the bad guys are given enough depth that they aren't simple stock villains or OTT cackling psychopaths & McGee introduces some solid supporting characters in the form of Lasseur, Gadd & Mrs Flynn. The action is well written, exciting & when necessary uncompromising & to the point. Lasseur's actions during the dénouement stick in the memory in particular, being simple, quick & highly effective as well as totallly surprising.
If McGee can keep the level of invention he has displayed thus far up over the books that follow then the Hawkwood series has a very bright future indeed. I would rather have flawed books like this, which at least try to do something new & original than ones that may work with machinelike precision but feel like they have been written to some sort of pre-programmed template. Roll on the next Hawkwood adventure. I can't wait to see where it takes us.
Sorry Sharpe your History - By: Mr. R. Knott, 24 Jun 2008 What can i say, The 3rd Hawkwood book & they go from strength to strength, The attention to historical detail is amazing & it feels like you are there, The atmosphere of the prison hulks is captured briliantly. The day the book was delivered i began & 16hrs later sadly i had come to the end, When's the next due? Not much of Jago in this but Lasseur more than makes up for that, Will we see him again?. I know this is meant to be a review but i'm sure others will do that so i'll just enthuse. If your new to Hawkwood i recommend starting with Ratcatcher always start at the beginning, but you wont regret the money spent, Richard Sharpe watch out your history.
