The brilliant prequel to JACK ABSOLUTE...

'Jack escapes death more often than James Bond in his attempt to find the traitor in the King's ranks . . . an exciting romp' Sunday Telegraph

'Bernard Cornwell is good but Humphreys is better' Historical Novels Review

London 1759 and Jack's life is easy. A scholar at Westminster School, a master with cricket bat or billiard cue, the leader of a gang of bucks about the Town, he has both a girl he worships and a courtesan teaching him the more basic arts of love. Yet he plans to give up all carousing, sit the examinations for Cambridge, find a career in any field he chooses. If he can just stay out of trouble for one night...

From the billiard halls and brothels of London to a clash of Empires on the Plains of Abraham, Jack's life is forever altered by the tragedies of that night. Through duels, battles, frantic escapes and a brutal winter spent in a cave in Canada, the schoolboy will vanish, and a man appear.

But first he must learn to kill. To come of age, Jack Absolute must be blooded.