GOD'S PRISONER

A murder no one suspects. A prisoner no jail can hold.

In a locked office in the City of London, James Ayrton faces ruin. His partner, John Brodie, has discovered the forged ledgers, and in a moment of rage and despair a single shot rings out. Within the hour, Brodie's body is sealed in a packing case and lodged in a safe deposit vault under his own name. By morning Ayrton is beyond suspicion, free to take everything. He is also, as he soon discovers, a prisoner.

Then the impossible begins. Letters arrive from the Far East in Brodie's handwriting. The newspapers report that Brodie survived a shipwreck and has married a fellow passenger. Ayrton, who knows exactly where Brodie lies, is driven to the edge of madness by a mystery he cannot confess and cannot solve.

First published in 1898, God's Prisoner moves from the fog and gaslight of Victorian London to the blue water and coral reefs of the South Pacific. There, sailing under a new name aboard the trading schooner Bluewing, with a stubborn Yankee captain hunting a lost cargo of gold, Ayrton must face the question at the heart of the novel: can a man who has escaped all earthly justice ever be free?

Part psychological thriller, part sea adventure, and part story of redemption, this was among the first novels of John Oxenham (William Arthur Dunkerley, 1852-1941), the much-loved author of Bees in Amber and the hymn "In Christ There Is No East or West." Readers who know Oxenham as a poet of quiet faith will discover here a gripping storyteller in the tradition of Wilkie Collins and Robert Louis Stevenson.

This Read-Me.Org Modernized-Classic edition features:
The complete text of the 1899 Henry Holt edition, corrected and lightly modernized in spelling and hyphenation, with Oxenham's language and dialogue preservedA new introduction by Colin Heston on the novel, its author, and its themes of guilt, conscience, and graceThree original illustrations opening each of the novel's three books: The Crime, The Punishment, and The RedemptionReview and discussion questions, ideal for book clubs, classrooms, and readers of Victorian fiction
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