Sebastian Becker was never meant to live, but sometimes you just don’t plan these things.

He made his first appearance in The Kingdom of Bones, pursuing the fugitive Tom Sayers from London’s Music Hall circuit to a final confrontation in a Lousiana furniture store, a Javert to Sayers’ Valjean. The Bedlam Detective found him back in England with his young family, working cash-in-hand to support them as an investigator for the Lord Chancellor’s Visitor in Lunacy. In The Authentic William James he’s handed a job with political implications that he turns into a personal mission.

“You feel others’ pain. But you won’t share your own. There are people who love you. They love you more than you know. But you can never bring yourself to believe that you deserve it.”

Along the way I’ve been adding shorter pieces, fleshing out Becker’s world, filling in some of the gaps. Out of Bedlam falls between The Kingdom of Bones and The Bedlam Detective; the action of One Dove slots in between Bedlam Detective and William James. The new novella takes us forward with a character whose potential I’d begun to sense along the way. For new readers it includes a (relevant) sample chapter from The Authentic William James.