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 Commandant Gifford inhabits is characterised by sentient clockwork, urchins, Girls' Schools, bad weather, bombs, airships, Abolitionists,...

Disgraced son of a gentleman farmer, Nicholas Pelly is sent to redeem himself in the turbulent South African colonies. Taken under the wing of Ragwasi, his African friend and mentor, Pelly crosses the cultural divides of the late 19th Century to take up arms against the enemies of the Tswana people, marry an African woman and travel through the wars and landscapes of the period in search of redemption. After a decade of upheaval, service in the British and Tswana armies and attempts to make restitution he returns home to England in the hope of a prodigal son's welcome.