Sexton Blake: The Coster King

Synopsis:
“I detest oppression in any form, and this act of turning the costers off the pitch they have used for years seems to me a bit of petty tyranny that ought to be fought against. Not by violence—there’s no sense in that—but by a sort of ‘passive resistance,’ well organised and well led.” ~Sexton Blake, The Coster King, 1907.

London, East End, 1907. For years the costermongers have worked their barrows along Costers’ Mile, until Borough Councillor Josiah Pounce signs the order to drive them out. The eviction ends in a riot, a police inspector lies dead, and an honest old coster is sentenced to hang for a stone he never threw.

Determined to fight a battle of right against might, Sexton Blake takes up the costers’ cause. Trading Baker Street for a barrow, he and Tinker go undercover as Sam and Alf ‘Awkins, a pair of street vendors with their bloodhound Pedro in tow. Within days the market has crowned Sam its Coster King, and he’ll need every ounce of his new authority. The East End has dangers of its own, and the costers all want Pounce’s blood. Blake, though he stands with them, finds himself shielding the man he despises while he hunts for the real killer.

Can the great detective uncover the truth, or will an innocent man go to the gallows?

Ernest William Wolfe Alais (1864–1922) was a British story-paper author who penned 49 Sexton Blake tales between 1906 and 1922. His major serials and epics include The Coster King (1907), Tiller and Tideway (1908), Sexton Blake, Steward (1909), and Sexton Blake, Foreman (1910)—the last of which is widely regarded by fans as one of the finest Edwardian Blake serials ever written. Beyond Baker Street, Alais is also fondly remembered for creating Kit and Cora Twyford, a brother-and-sister detective team who solved mysteries across the pages of various publications from 1904 to 1921.