Böcker av Philip G. Brown

The summer holidays and school's out. In Linbury, Freddy and Harry are employed by Russell Warren, the blacksmith's son, to help demolish the remains of the cottage after the fire on the green. Discoveries are made that puts them in danger from the new beadle, Gabriel Levens, who has been appointed to police the area.However, it comes as no surprise to Freddy that it's the beadle and his assistant who need policing, particularly when a murder occurs and a culprit is soon produced.Meanwhile, Simon Blotwell is having a hard time at Blotwell Manor, some of it due to his father, Squire Blotwell, a little to the tutor he has been burdened with, but most of it is self-inflicted. His lofty disdain for all his 'inferiors', including the stable boy, Billy, hardly helps him.Later on in the holidays, he's due to stay at Bruton Manor, a much more conducive environment, but Auntie Millicent - Lady Bruton - insists he bring a friend from school. A suggestion is made that he invites Freddy, but then Freddy is merely a common, country boy...With the sabres rattling between Albion and Silesia, Freddy wants to visit his friend Carl Birch, who's serving aboard HMS Ajax in Portsmouth and due to sail for the Baltic. But to merely get into the naval dockyard, he needs the influence of someone in a high position in the Admiralty.

Freddy Hall is fourteen years old. He lives at the Sailor's Yarn inn in the village of Linbury on the coast of Dorset. His widowed dad is the local publican who is trying to get to grips with the new fangled beer pump in the cellar.Freddy has no phone, no computer, no games console. There are no cars in the village, not even a bicycle, and he has to get to school on foot every day, except Sunday. Sunday is the day he attends the morning service at All Souls church across the road. It is all but compulsory.Freddy has never heard of the Internet, nor social media, but he does have a few well-worn books and a telescope - and thinks himself lucky.The year is 1826, and it's a bright Spring morning in April. The first day of the new term at Seekings School. Freddy's school. It's an easy two mile walk for him, but a more difficult journey of self discovery awaits him as he thrust into the everyday life of this prestigious seat of learning - of masters with a ready cane - of pupils with their ambitions, rivalries, hatreds and jealousies. Yet it's also a place where the virtues of loyalty, self-sacrifice and the bonds of deep friendship are forged.There is the wider world too - of intrigue and deceit, in a setting not quite like that as told in the history books. King Henry XI is on the throne of Albion, not England. The foreign adversary is the Kingdom of Silesia, not France. But the similarities of this 1826 to the one that has been passed down to us, outweigh the differences. London is the capitol city - the foremost capitol in the world; the Parliament sits in Westminster; the Royal Navy rules the waves, and the Archbishop sits on the throne of Canterbury.This is the first exciting instalment of Freddy's adventures which continue in four more books. Prepare to be enthralled...