THE LOST PROPERTY OFFICE​
A novel of indecent ambitions

JW would like to settle down with today's Wordle, but when Raghu, his crypto-billionaire client, loses a finger to a French gangster, he gets drawn into a street war that might become a global one.

 

JW runs a discreet recovery service from offices in St James’s Square. Birkin bags, priceless art, plans for nuclear enrichment plants – if someone took it, he can usually get it back, especially if one of his gangs did the thieving in the first place.

 

Raghu, a crypto billionaire with more shady secrets than Al Capone and Lady Macbeth put together, recently asked JW to retrieve an iPhone filled with photos that he would rather his wife didn't see. Now Raghu is back. A French gangster known as La Marseillaise has lopped off one of his fingers, wanting to persuade him to freeze the accounts of eight Russian oligarchs. JW is drawn into a war that stretches from Hoxton to Moscow and as London’s streets run red, political certainties in the Kremlin crumble.

 

JW has to decide if he is fixing a problem … or bringing down a tyrant.

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The Lost Property Office reimagines the story of the real 1720s crime boss Jonathan Wild in a near-future London where the ‘Bloody Code’ – which specified the death penalty for even the smallest of crimes – has returned. It's our past ... and maybe our future too.