Disgraced and demoted Commandant Farbell Gifford, terror of the middle Yangtse, is sent back home to take over the run down Bristol branch of the Excise and Detection Service. A murder on his first day quickly reveals the limitations of his subordinates and faces him with the triple challenge of finding the culprit, reforming the department and, more urgently, buying a new boat.Set in a sort of 19th Century Bristol and Bath, the gothic world that...