The Hudson & Lawes Trilogy
2 primary works 3 total works planned
Book 1
1838 and under the new Poor Law the destitute are now housed in union workhouses.
Two men unknown to each other seek to uncover the suspected mistreatment of inmates in a small Suffolk workhouse. Edgar Lawes is a local landowner and justice of the peace; Ambrose Hudson a London journalist.
Establishing himself on the board Lawes is immediately disturbed by the inhumanity he finds. Hudson becomes an inmate and covertly keeps a journal of conditions and events which follow chronologically those of Edgar Lawes.
The complacency of the owners is shattered by a suicide, closely followed by the brutal murder of a workhouse official. In the wake of these two deaths unlikely friendships are forged and lives are changed, but will it be for the better?
Book 2
Set against the grimness of the lives of mill workers in Bingley, West Yorkshire, the second book in the Hudson and Lawes trilogy opens in 1839 almost exactly a year after the affair at Seddon workhouse in Suffolk where the two men first met. Characters now familiar from the first in the trilogy, On the House reappear and play integral roles in the story.
Increasingly recognised as a successful investigative journalist, Ambrose Hudson is canvassed by an overseer in a woollen mill to follow up his suspicions of illegal child labour in the North-East. The man is also concerned that the heinous practice of baby farming is operating in the same area. A four-handed investigation is needed and Ambrose persuades his friend Edgar Lawes to accompany him to Bingley where the two men are quickly embroiled in undercover work and surveillance of the perpetrators of both crimes. The farming of babies for hard cash is something new to both men, and the viciousness of the criminals involved is shocking. During the investigation the friends meet an old adversary and Ambrose sets out on the beginnings of a tragic love affair.