I read Blood & Sugar by Laura Shepherd-Robinson, as someone who likes both crime fiction and historical fiction and has read other fictionalised accounts of the slave trade (see my blogs on Homegoing and The Underground Railroad). It was an excellent and different take on the horrors and human misery of this appalling part of British history.

It is set in Deptford around Deptford Creek (an area I know well from having done my Masters dissertation on its regeneration nearly thirty years ago), one of the lesser known centre of the British slave trade, and begins when protagonist Harry Corsham gets a visit from the sister of one of his oldest and now estranged friends Tad, to say that Tad has gone missing and was last seen headed to Deptford. When Harry pays a visit to the area he is shocked to discover his friend has been murdered and found hanging at the docks.

The mystery deepens from there, as it soon becomes clear that Tad, an abolitionist, has got on the wrong side of a cast of powerful people, by coming close to uncovering a secret of an atrocity so bad it could turn the tide of public opinion against slavery. Harry throws caution to the wind, endangering his marriage and career, and his life, to get to the bottom of just what happened on the voyage of the slave ship The Dark Angel.

This is gripping, pacey and tells an important story of murderous atrocity. A must-read.