The Rise of an English Lawbreaker

The Rise of an English Lawbreaker traces John Smith’s ascent through the violent smuggling economy of eighteenth-century Kent. Returning to his home district with a grievance against the landowner responsible for his father’s death, Smith builds influence among the Free Traders while preventive officers and rival gangs close around him.

The trilogy places personal ambition within a coastal economy shaped by customs duties, poverty, patronage and organised violence. Smugglers, informers, officials and landowners all depend on networks of protection, making the boundary between criminal enterprise and respectable power increasingly difficult to defend.