The year is 1820.
When he\'s offered a job as private investigator to re-open the case of a painter due to be hanged for a murder he didn\'t commit, Sandman readily accepts--as much for the money as for a chance.
But instead of settling down to fame and glory, he finds himself penniless in a country where high unemployment and social unrest rage, and where men--innocent or guilty--are hanged for the merest of crimes.
Rider Sandman, a hero of Waterloo, returns to London to wed his fiancee.
The year is 1820