Devil's Road

While draining a pond during work for the construction of the Stockton to Darlington Railway George Stevenson's workers discover a female corpse with a dagger stuck between her ribs—could it be that of Lady Beresford, the French wife of a local baron who disappeared under mysterious circumstances twenty years ago? The identity of the victim is at the heart of Jean-Pierre Ohl's novel, a richly woven tapestry set during the rise of capitalism in England.

The Devil's Road has a Dickensian range of characters from the indolent liberal lawyer with a taste for Byron's poems and madeira wine, his imperturbable clerk Snegg, the activist worker Davies and the 'Corporal', a veteran of the Napoleonic wars and demonstrator wounded at the Peterloo Massacre—there is even a role for the young Charles Dickens working in the blacking warehouse.
As well as its vivid picture of English society at a key moment of development, The Devil's Road also has elements of the Gothic novel, making it Jean-Pierre Ohl's homage to the English tradition of fiction.

In timp ce dreneaza un iaz in timpul lucrarilor pentru constructia liniei de cale ferata Stockton to Darlington, lucratorii lui George Stevenson descopera un cadavru feminin cu un pumnal infipt intre coaste - ar putea fi cel al Lady Beresford, sotia franceza a unui baron local care a disparut in circumstante misterioase acum douazeci de ani?