In The Butcher’s Block , the second full-length Dan Foster Mystery, Dan is working undercover in Southwark in a case that sees him crossing paths with body snatchers, blood-thirsty revolutionaries, French agents and British spies. In the eighteenth century Southwark was a smelly, noisy, dirty place, crammed with shipping and its associated wharves and warehouses handling coal, timber, pipe clay, corn and a myriad other goods. Many of its industries were not the sort we’d like to live next door to, such as slaughter houses, leather tanning, brewing, soap and candle making. There were workshops and factories producing hats, glue, sugar, needles, watches, guns and coaches. There were flour mills, distilleries, and breweries such as that owned by Henry Thrale, husband of writer and diarist Esther Thrale. There were markets at Borough and St George’s Market, and men and women on the streets selling food, drink, ballads, ribbons, flowers, bread, and other goods. There were beef ...