To Kingdom Come: A Novel

"A fascinating and fun new detective team...Thomas again brings the era to life with vivid details.... Entertaining." -- Ron Bernas, Detroit Free Press "A talent to watch and enjoy...delightful." -- S. I. Dunn, The Dallas Morning News "A thorough delight." -- Tom and Enid Schantz, The Denver Post "Colorful London private enquiry agent Cyrus Barker and his diminutive young Welsh assistant, Thomas Llewelyn, make a welcome return in this sequel to last year's Some Danger Involved ...The story is lively, full of convincing historical detail and reveals a few more tantalizing facts from Barker's mysterious past. The wonderful chemistry between Barker and Llewelyn makes the book, like its predecessor, a thorough delight." -- Denver Post "Thomas places his cast of likeable even heroic characters within a complex political minefield and the waits for the explosion. Intense and insightful." -- Booklist "Last year, Will Thomas' debut novel, Some Danger Involved, introduced readers to Cyrus Barker and Thomas Llewelyn, a fascinating and fun new detective team...It was one of the best mysteries of 2004... [To Kingdom Come] mostly lives up to expectations. Kingdom opens with a bang, literally, as the new Special Irish Branch of Scotland Yard is destroyed by a bomb planted by a fledgling group called the Irish Republican Brotherhood...there's enough of what made Danger so good to keep Kingdom entertaining. Llewelyn says he's growing used to never knowing where Barker is going or in what situation they'll find themselves once they get there. But still he follows. Readers will, too." -- Detroit Free Press "...fast-paced, cleanly written follow-up to Some Danger Involved ...The action unfolds briskly, and Llewelyn's voice should appeal to boys of all ages." -- Publishers Weekly "Having created a pair of appealing protagonists who debuted in his Victorian London mystery Some Danger Involved, Thomas needed to look no further than May 30, 1884-when Scotland Yard was bombed by Irish nationalists-for an actual event around which to build his first sequel...A successful blend of fiction and fact, this is-as expected-expertly researched and skillfully plotted, with satisfying amounts of emotion (with a growing friendship between Barker and Llewelyn) and suspense. For all mystery collections." -- Library Journal "Mystery lovers should grab the book and, before opening it, know that the author, Will Thomas, delivers another slam-dunk story about this inquiry agent and his apprentice, Thomas Llewelyn, who unravel intricate mysteries in Victorian England. This second book in (hopefully) a series, is as carefully researched and lethal as the first, Some Danger Involved." -- Star Newspapers "Watching Llewelyn acquire expertise in the arcane specialties of stick-fighting and hand-made explosives was absorbing, and I was equally fascinated by the meticulous attention the duo pay to assuming their new identities. The descriptions of the settings, ranging from cosmopolitan London and Liverpool to the desolate Welsh countryside, are masterfully drawn, and the lead characters and their comrades are burgeoning delightfully. This modern take on the Victorian era is utterly believable even when the characters are slightly too skilled to be true, and the running humor (the killer Pekinese, and the surly Chinese chef, for examples) adds colorful and delectable garnishes to this tasty main course." -- I Love a Mystery Will Thomas is the author of the Barker and Llewelyn series, a series of mystery novels set in Victorian England. The first novel in the series was nominated for a Barry Award and a Shamus Award, and won the 2005 Oklahoma Book Award. He lives with his family in Oklahoma. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. To Kingdom Come By Will Thomas Touchstone Books Copyright © 2006 Will ThomasAll right reserved. ISBN: 9780743272346 Chapter One Boom. It was a sublime sound, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. It wasn't loud - not much more than a thunderclap, really - but it was profound. I felt it echo from the outbuildings in our garden before reaching my ears. My employer, London enquiry agent Cyrus Barker, looked at me through his opaque spectacles, as if to ask What the deuce has happened now? Barker and I had been in the garden behind his house, performing what he called "internal exercises." It had been two and a half months since he'd hired me as his assistant, and I was still recovering from the effects of our first case in which I'd been injured severely, not to mention nearly killed. It was in the back of his mind, I believe, to take advantage of my convalescence and turn me into a wiry bantamweight through the physical training he taught at Scotland Yard. He had me at the dumbbells and Indian clubs constantly. I didn't object, because, first of all, he paid my salary and, second, I felt the training was to my benefit. The internal exercises were another matter. There we were in our shirtsleeves, moving placidly across the lawn, waving our arms in slow, precise movements resembling postures of self-defense, save that one would have been struck long before completing any of the motions. Barker, who had learned the art while growing up in China, took it all very seriously, but to me, the exercises were no more useful than playing hopscotch. I did them all the same, of course. Aside from paying my salary, he also provided room and board. The sky had been clear that day, and we had been treated to a shimmering sunset, blood red at first, as if a volcano were spewing forth west of us, then giving way to salmon and violet and finally deepest blue. The ornate garden behind Barker's house in Newington was a pleasant place to be on a warm evening in late May. When I had first seen it in mid-March, I thought it austere and exotic with its large rocks, pebbles, and dwarf evergreens. Now the garden had erupted in a riot of color, resembling one of Mr. Whistler's mad canvases, and Barker and his crew of Chinese gardeners were hard-pressed, clipping and pruning, to return it to its more stoic appearance. Harm, self-appointed guardian of the property, reigned over his domain from a flat rock in the stone garden. Barker had informed me he was one of less than a dozen Chinese temple dogs, or Pekingese, in Europe. The dowager empress of China had given the dog to him "for services rendered," but what those services were, he had not revealed. The Guv'nor could be exasperatingly reticent when it suited him. Our motions might have interested the little dog had he not seen us do them a thousand times. From where I stood in the bed of thyme, slowly waving my arms about like an inmate from Bethlehem Asylum just down the street, I could hear the dog snoring on the rock. I rather envied the little fellow. It didn't help my concentration that we faced the back of the house. On the other side of the door, there was a well-appointed kitchen with a pantry, which at that moment contained an apple pie with cognac and caramelized sugar, prepared by one of London's premier chefs, Etienne Dummolard. Etienne came in most mornings from his Soho restaurant, Le Toison d'Or , with enough freshly prepared food to last us through the day, like so much manna from heaven. After the pie, I promised myself, I would sit down with a book in the library. Barker was an inveterate book collector, and being a Scot, he had a complete set of the Waverly novels. I had been working my way through them and was now up to The Heart of Midlothian . "One more time, lad, and we're through for the night," Barker said. I sighed and raised my protesting arms again. It was then that we heard the boom. We both knew instantly that something had happened. If we hadn't, Harm had. He began barking hysterically. It was his clarion cry, his alarm for us mortals too dull to appreciate that something significant had occurred. In answer, we heard dozens of responses from other canine sentinels across London. We needed no other warning. Barker and I sprinted across the lawn toward the back door. Once inside, we skidded across the polished floor and climbed the first staircase. Running past my room, we mounted the stairs to Barker's aerie. My employer seized a small box I'd never noticed before from one of the tables and tripped its latch. Inside was a brass telescope, a relic of his sailing days, I presumed. He flicked open the telescope and scanned the horizon to the west from one of the dormer windows. "Anything?" I asked. "Anything?" "Nothing appears to be on fire, but there is a haze on the far side of the river," Barker responded. I took the telescope eagerly and looked myself but saw only what my employer had said, a whitish haze over the river where our offices stood. "What should we do?" I asked. "I suppose we should go and see if anything is amiss." The latter seemed as sensible a decision as any. I left him and went down to the first floor for my jacket. When I came downstairs a few minutes later, knotting my tie, Barker's butler, Jacob Maccabee, was waiting in the hall with a look of concern on his face. "It could have been a factory accident, I suppose," he said, straightening my knot. "Could you hear which direction it came from?" "You know the garden," I answered. "It's like sitting in a soup bowl, with those high brick walls. The Guv looked toward the west." I hoped Mac was right, and our going out would be for naught. A factory accident would be preferable to the other possibility, a bomb. Since the previous year, a radical group calling itself the Irish Republican Brotherhood had been leading a dynamiting campaign against the city in an attempt to force a bill for Home Rule. Several bombs had been located safely by the authorities, and one had exploded harmlessly in the baggage room of Victoria Station, but the fact that the attempts had been unsuccessful was not a comfort to most Londoners. The Criminal Investigation Department at Scotland Yard hastily formed a new section, the Special Irish Branch, to safeguard the public and the Royal Family. Despite their efforts, neither Mac nor I was surprised at the thought that the I.R.B. might strike again. Finally, Barker came down the stairs. He was soberly dressed in a black cutaway coat, his maroon tie thrust up under a wing collar and held with a pearl stickpin. He stepped between us and reached for a stick from the hall stand before opening the door. I naturally followed. The pie and Midlothian would have to wait. Our hansom cab, which Barker had acquired during our last investigation two months before, was quartered just a half mile away to the east. I assumed my employer would send me to rouse the stable boy, something I'd prefer not to do after a full day's work and those dratted exercises. As it turned out, that would have been preferable to what Barker had in mind. "Right, then," he stated. "Let's hop it, lad." "Hop it, sir?" "Aye. We'll walk. You can use the exercise." He didn't waste breath on conversation, but set off northwest along London Road, his stick swinging dangerously back and forth. At an inch or two over six feet in height, he was a head taller than I. Consequently, I had to double his footsteps in order to keep up. Most of the streets on the south side of London were empty, the shops locked and dark. The residents, enjoying their well-deserved evening of rest, seemed unconcerned by the noise that had brought us out on this quiet evening. A chorus of crickets chirped in the vestiges of Lambeth Marsh south of us, accompanied by the low croak of the frogs that fed on them. If I closed my eyes, I could almost feel as if I were back in the country at my childhood home in Wales. Barker suddenly dodged off Waterloo Road, and had I not been trying to stay close, I would have shot past the lane he ducked into. For the next several minutes I felt as if I were in a maze, following my employer from street to passage to alleyway. Before I knew it, we'd come up along some railroad sleepers, and then we were on a bridge. Not Waterloo, nor Westminster, but a smaller bridge between the two. "What bridge is this?" I asked, peering over the side at the Thames, which looked as thin and black as India ink. "The Charing Cross Railway and Footbridge," he called back, over his shoulder. "Where does it fetch up?" "On the Embankment behind Scotland Yard." "Wait," I said, trying to catch my breath. "You mean there's been a footbridge right by our offices all this time, and you didn't tell me?" "If I told you everything, Llewelyn, how ever would you learn anything for yourself?" I noticed an immediate difference on the west side of the river. There was a chalky grit in the air. The gaslights were balls of light on stalks, as if a globe of frosted glass had been fitted over each one. The haze grew thicker as we approached, and as I watched, wraithlike figures began to come forward out of the gloom. I'd have taken them for ghosts, if I believed in such things, but as we passed among them, they seemed tangible enough; normal citizens, covered in brick dust from head to toe, all staring with dazed expressions out of red-rimmed eyes. Barker and I reached for our pocket handkerchiefs and pushed ourselves through the foglike haze and the crowd of shocked and bedraggled residents. In Whitehall Place, we had to pick our way around piles of fallen bricks. It was only when we crossed Whitehall Street and looked back that we could see the full devastation. "My word," I murmured. It was the thirtieth of May 1884, and someone had just blown up Scotland Yard. Continues... Excerpted from To Kingdom Come by Will Thomas Copyright © 2006 by Will Thomas. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. 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