James McGee (author)
Encyclopedia
James McGee is an English
novelist known for his historical novel
s about a fictional Bow Street Runner
Matthew Hawkwood. The books are set in Regency
London
.
James McGee was born in Kent
in 1950, but, as an army
child, spent his childhood in Gibraltar
, Germany
and Northern Ireland
. He has worked in various trades and professions including banking, newspapers and bookselling
.
, when Britain was at war
with Napoleon. His hero, Matthew Hawkwood, is working as a Bow Street Runner
, an early investigative officer working out of London's Bow Street Magistrates' Court
. He is called upon to solve a number of civil crimes, including murder, body-snatching
and highway robbery
, but his previous military
experience makes him ably suited to investigate issues of national security
.
Hawkwood has a complicated back-story
, which is touched upon at various stages of the novels. He once served as an officer
in the 95th Rifles, but was cashiered after he killed a fellow officer in a duel
. With Wellington's
intervention he was spared a court-martial
, and instead joined the Spanish Guerrilleros
, liaising with the British intelligence officer
Colquhoun Grant. It is Grant's influence that enables Hawkwood to get a job at Bow Street on his return to England.
McGee's creation of Hawkwood's past was deliberate, as he wanted a hero who was "at home in both the military and criminal worlds". Many reviewers and readers have drawn similarities between Hawkwood and fellow author Bernard Cornwell
's Sharpe
, particularly as they both served in the rifles. McGee admits this similarity was a concern for him, but giving Hawkwood a background in the Rifle Brigade was important to the plot.
Much of the action within the novels is inspired by historical events. The plot of Ratcatcher centres around the secret development of the first submarines
by American Robert Fulton
, then working for the French
. Resurrectionist
is darker, reflecting the underworld of "resurrectionists" who stole bodies
to supply the anatomy schools of London, and the experimentation of early (and illegal) organ transplant
and resuscitation. Rapscallion focuses on French prisoners-of-war upon the prison hulks
. Rebellion sees Hawkwood assigned to the Alien Office, the forerunner of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service. He is despatched to Paris to liaise with a cadre of renegade French generals attempting to overthrow Napoleon Bonaparte. The plot is centred around the attempted coup which became known as the Malet Conspiracy.
and Andrew Taylor
have also praised the novels.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
novelist known for his historical novel
Historical novel
According to Encyclopædia Britannica, a historical novel is-Development:An early example of historical prose fiction is Luó Guànzhōng's 14th century Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which covers one of the most important periods of Chinese history and left a lasting impact on Chinese culture.The...
s about a fictional Bow Street Runner
Bow Street Runners
The Bow Street Runners have been called London's first professional police force. The force was founded in 1749 by the author Henry Fielding and originally numbered just six. Bow Street runners was the public's nickname for these officers, "although the officers never referred to themselves as...
Matthew Hawkwood. The books are set in Regency
English Regency
The Regency era in the United Kingdom is the period between 1811—when King George III was deemed unfit to rule and his son, the Prince of Wales, ruled as his proxy as Prince Regent—and 1820, when the Prince Regent became George IV on the death of his father....
London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
.
James McGee was born in Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
in 1950, but, as an army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
child, spent his childhood in Gibraltar
Gibraltar
Gibraltar is a British overseas territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance of the Mediterranean. A peninsula with an area of , it has a northern border with Andalusia, Spain. The Rock of Gibraltar is the major landmark of the region...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
. He has worked in various trades and professions including banking, newspapers and bookselling
Bookselling
Bookselling is the commercial trading of books, the retail and distribution end of the publishing process. People who engage in bookselling are called booksellers or bookmen.-Bookstores today:...
.
Matthew Hawkwood novels
McGee's historical novels are set during the Regency periodEnglish Regency
The Regency era in the United Kingdom is the period between 1811—when King George III was deemed unfit to rule and his son, the Prince of Wales, ruled as his proxy as Prince Regent—and 1820, when the Prince Regent became George IV on the death of his father....
, when Britain was at war
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
with Napoleon. His hero, Matthew Hawkwood, is working as a Bow Street Runner
Bow Street Runners
The Bow Street Runners have been called London's first professional police force. The force was founded in 1749 by the author Henry Fielding and originally numbered just six. Bow Street runners was the public's nickname for these officers, "although the officers never referred to themselves as...
, an early investigative officer working out of London's Bow Street Magistrates' Court
Bow Street Magistrates' Court
Bow Street Magistrates' Court was the most famous magistrates' court in England for much of its existence, and was located in various buildings on Bow Street in central London close to Covent Garden throughout its history.-History:...
. He is called upon to solve a number of civil crimes, including murder, body-snatching
Body-snatching
Body snatching is the secret disinterment of corpses from graveyards. A common purpose of body snatching is to sell the corpses for dissection or anatomy lectures in medical schools...
and highway robbery
Highwayman
A highwayman was a thief and brigand who preyed on travellers. This type of outlaw, usually, travelled and robbed by horse, as compared to a footpad who traveled and robbed on foot. Mounted robbers were widely considered to be socially superior to footpads...
, but his previous military
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
experience makes him ably suited to investigate issues of national security
National security
National security is the requirement to maintain the survival of the state through the use of economic, diplomacy, power projection and political power. The concept developed mostly in the United States of America after World War II...
.
Hawkwood has a complicated back-story
Back-story
A back-story, background story, or backstory is the literary device of a narrative chronologically earlier than, and related to, a narrative of primary interest. Generally, it is the history of characters or other elements that underlie the situation existing at the main narrative's start...
, which is touched upon at various stages of the novels. He once served as an officer
Officer (armed forces)
An officer is a member of an armed force or uniformed service who holds a position of authority. Commissioned officers derive authority directly from a sovereign power and, as such, hold a commission charging them with the duties and responsibilities of a specific office or position...
in the 95th Rifles, but was cashiered after he killed a fellow officer in a duel
Duel
A duel is an arranged engagement in combat between two individuals, with matched weapons in accordance with agreed-upon rules.Duels in this form were chiefly practised in Early Modern Europe, with precedents in the medieval code of chivalry, and continued into the modern period especially among...
. With Wellington's
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, KG, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS , was an Irish-born British soldier and statesman, and one of the leading military and political figures of the 19th century...
intervention he was spared a court-martial
Court-martial
A court-martial is a military court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of members of the armed forces subject to military law, and, if the defendant is found guilty, to decide upon punishment.Most militaries maintain a court-martial system to try cases in which a breach of...
, and instead joined the Spanish Guerrilleros
Guerrilla warfare
Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare and refers to conflicts in which a small group of combatants including, but not limited to, armed civilians use military tactics, such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, the element of surprise, and extraordinary mobility to harass a larger and...
, liaising with the British intelligence officer
Intelligence officer
An intelligence officer is a person employed by an organization to collect, compile and/or analyze information which is of use to that organization...
Colquhoun Grant. It is Grant's influence that enables Hawkwood to get a job at Bow Street on his return to England.
McGee's creation of Hawkwood's past was deliberate, as he wanted a hero who was "at home in both the military and criminal worlds". Many reviewers and readers have drawn similarities between Hawkwood and fellow author Bernard Cornwell
Bernard Cornwell
Bernard Cornwell OBE is an English author of historical novels. He is best known for his novels about Napoleonic Wars rifleman Richard Sharpe which were adapted into a series of Sharpe television films.-Biography:...
's Sharpe
Richard Sharpe (fictional character)
Sharpe is a series of historical fiction stories by Bernard Cornwell centred on the character of Richard Sharpe. The stories formed the basis for an ITV television series wherein the eponymous character was played by Sean Bean....
, particularly as they both served in the rifles. McGee admits this similarity was a concern for him, but giving Hawkwood a background in the Rifle Brigade was important to the plot.
Much of the action within the novels is inspired by historical events. The plot of Ratcatcher centres around the secret development of the first submarines
Nautilus (1800 submarine)
Nautilus, first tested in 1800, is often considered the first practical submarine, though preceded by Cornelius Drebbel's of 1620.-Background:...
by American Robert Fulton
Robert Fulton
Robert Fulton was an American engineer and inventor who is widely credited with developing the first commercially successful steamboat...
, then working for the French
French First Republic
The French First Republic was founded on 22 September 1792, by the newly established National Convention. The First Republic lasted until the declaration of the First French Empire in 1804 under Napoleon I...
. Resurrectionist
Resurrectionist (James McGee novel)
Resurrectionist is an historical adventure novel by author James McGee. It is the sequel to McGee's best-selling Ratcatcher.-Main characters:...
is darker, reflecting the underworld of "resurrectionists" who stole bodies
Body-snatching
Body snatching is the secret disinterment of corpses from graveyards. A common purpose of body snatching is to sell the corpses for dissection or anatomy lectures in medical schools...
to supply the anatomy schools of London, and the experimentation of early (and illegal) organ transplant
Organ transplant
Organ transplantation is the moving of an organ from one body to another or from a donor site on the patient's own body, for the purpose of replacing the recipient's damaged or absent organ. The emerging field of regenerative medicine is allowing scientists and engineers to create organs to be...
and resuscitation. Rapscallion focuses on French prisoners-of-war upon the prison hulks
Prison ship
A prison ship, historically sometimes called a prison hulk, is a vessel used as a prison, often to hold convicts awaiting transportation to penal colonies. This practice was popular with the British government in the 18th and 19th centuries....
. Rebellion sees Hawkwood assigned to the Alien Office, the forerunner of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service. He is despatched to Paris to liaise with a cadre of renegade French generals attempting to overthrow Napoleon Bonaparte. The plot is centred around the attempted coup which became known as the Malet Conspiracy.
List of titles
- (1985) Trigger Men
- (1989) Crow's War
- (1990) Wolf's Lair
- (2006) Ratcatcher, London: HarperCollinsHarperCollinsHarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide...
, ISBN 9780007212668 - (2007) ResurrectionistResurrectionist (James McGee novel)Resurrectionist is an historical adventure novel by author James McGee. It is the sequel to McGee's best-selling Ratcatcher.-Main characters:...
- (2008) Rapscallion
- (2011) Rebellion
Critical reception
McGee's novels have been generally well-received by the critics. The period detail, likeable hero and fast paced-action have commended the books to many reviewers. Fellow authors Reginald HillReginald Hill
Reginald Charles Hill is an English crime writer, and the winner in 1995 of the Crime Writers' Association Cartier Diamond Dagger for Lifetime Achievement.- Biography :...
and Andrew Taylor
Andrew Taylor (author)
Andrew Taylor is a British author best known for his crime novels, which include the Dougal series, the Lydmouth series, the Roth Trilogy and the historical novel The American Boy.-Biography:...
have also praised the novels.