The poisoned island
By: Lloyd Shepherd
Publisher: Simon & Schuster; Simon & Schuster Ltd
Published: 2013
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 421
ISBN-13: 9781471100345; 9781471100352; 9781471100369
Subjects: Fiction; History
Description: LONDON 1812: For forty years Britain has dreamed of the Pacific island of Tahiti, a dark paradise of bloody cults and beautiful natives. Now, decades after the first voyage of Captain Cook, a new ship returns to London, crammed with botanical specimens and, it seems, the mysteries of Tahiti. When, days after the Solander's arrival, some of its crew are found dead and their sea-chests ransacked - their throats slashed, faces frozen into terrible smiles - John Harriott, magistrate of the Thames river police, puts constable Charles Horton in charge of the investigation. But what connects the crewmen's dying dreams with the ambitions of the ship's principal backer, Sir Joseph Banks of the Royal Society?