Written by: T.S.Flynn
Submitted By: T.S.Flynn
(This review posted by the book's author)
You think you’ve had a bad day?
4 October 1843 Van Diemen’s Land; a British Prison Colony:
- Irish “Javelin Man” and convicted felon, Sir John Turner Flinn used to be a navy intelligence officer but at the age of fifty he’s been transported for life. How can he retain the respect of his sons and restore his honor? “Javelin Men” were trustee convicts who were employed as turn-keys, prisoner escorts and as guards at public hangings.
- The new Governor learns his “sinecure” is a “poison chalice” as the Colony’s bankrupt and his reform agenda unworkable..
- The new police chief, Frank Burgess is worried; he’s supposed to clean up a force that’s manned by serving convicts and brutality and graft is a way of life.
- Long serving colonial auditor, George Boyes is fed up with the worse thieves in the Colony; the Men at the Top.
- Bushrangers, Marty Cash and Lawrie Kavenagh pace the death cell dreading the gallows. They broke out of Port Arthur Prison, went on a rampage but now they must pay. Lawrie says he only escaped to go to Mass.
- Convicted Irish Patriot, Richard Jones is a man the System can’t break. His plan to seize the prison ship and to sail to New York, would have worked but for betrayal. He faced trial for piracy in Hobart but out-witted “the System” and beat the charge. However, he must finish his original sentence and he’s now in solitary and recovering from a savage flogging inflicted for leading a protest about the absence of Catholic prison chaplains. Dreams of liberty and dignity in America are the only thing keeping him going.
- Pub owner and widow, Mary Anne Smith is a beautiful, passionate but brutalized former convict; she’s lonely and yearns for a strong but gentle man.
- The only person who’s had a good day is magistrate, John Giles Price. He’s a man with a very dark past and he’s planning an even darker future…
