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Smuggler's Moon takes Sir John Fielding and Jeremy Proctor out of London and onto the Kent coast, where the local justice has asked Sir John to investigate a smuggling operation that has been killing customs officers. Bruce Alexander handles the change of scene with care: the village atmosphere, the social geography of a Kentish port town in the 1770s, and the genuine danger of confronting a tea-and-brandy smuggling syndicate that has the active sympathy of the local population.
Sir John's blindness is used particularly well here, in a series of interviews where he can read voices in a way the locals do not realize he can. Jeremy gets more action than usual. The dragoons subplot, in which the army is brought in and proceeds to make everything worse, is sharply observed.
Four stars. One of the most propulsive entries in the series and a useful change of pace after several London-set books.
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