Farewell Bruce Alexander

Laid up as I am with a broken knee, completely immobile for some weeks, I am making rapid progress through not only my routine backlog of reading but also some of those books that I set aside to be read in the future that I know I will like.

Yesterday, I dispatched the final book in Bruce Alexander's Sir John Fielding series. There are eleven books in the series starting with Blind Justice and ending, as I did yesterday, with Rules of Engagement.

An excellent series of mysteries set in Georgian London in the mid-1700's, it is based on the framework of the life of one of those early practical reformers with which England was so rich, in this instance, Sir John Fielding, "The Blind Beak" of Bow Street. There is a brief biographical entry of Sir John over at Wikipedia.

I discovered Alexander's series late, after seven or eight of the books had been published, started at the beginning with Blind Justice, worked my way forwards and then watched for new books as they were published every couple of years or so. Then, as seems to happen so distressingly often with newly discovered authors of series one really likes, Bruce Alexander passed away in 2003 with a final novel nearly finished. The story was completed by John Shannon and Alexander's wife, Judith Alexander based on notes he had left behind.

The whole series is an excellent view into the city and social structure of a London that was not at that time much more than a conglomeration of villages and yet populated with a most amazing portfolio of characters. The books are appropriate for highschoolers interested in history, mysteries or England.