“Grabbed me from the opening explosion, and hurtled towards the conclusion far too quickly. When is the next one?!”
—Phil Foglio, co-creator of Girl Genius
“Just when steampunk has started to run out of steam, King of the Cracksmen arrives to inject a new level of inventiveness, action and sheer craziness into the genre.”
— K. W. Jeter, author of Infernal Devices and Fiendish Schemes
“Rousingly violent, funny, sometimes shockingly profane.”
—Kirkus (starred review)
“[O’Flaherty] draws upon both the kind of academic background that makes scholars sit up and take notice, yet it's hard not to figure him for the cyberpunk love child of Agatha Christie and William Gibson. . . King of the Cracksmen is a multi-layered treat, and you're going to read it twice.”
—Huffington Post
"There isn't much room to catch your metaphorical breath in King of the Cracksmen. The plot steams ahead like one of the Acme robotic police that are patrolling O'Flaherty's alternate United States."
—Summer Reading Project
"A lot of fun moments in this debut steampunk adventure."
—Library Journal
Description
The year is 1877. Automatons and steam-powered dirigible gunships have transformed the nation in the aftermath of the Civil War. Everything on the other side of the Mississippi has been claimed for Russia. Lincoln is still president, having never been assassinated, but the former secretary of war Edwin Stanton is now the head of the Department of Public Safety, ruling with an iron fist as head of the country’s military.
Liam McCool is a bad man, one of the best Irish cracksmen there is when it comes to robbery, cracking safes, and other sundry actives—until he was caught red-handed by Stanton. Those in the South who don’t fit into Stanton’s plans for the Reconstruction, and Stanton realizes Liam McCool is more useful doing his dirty work than sitting in a jail cell. But when his sweetheart, Maggie, turns up murdered, Liam McCool realizes he’ll do anything, even if it means getting way over his head with bloodthirsty Russians, to solve the crime.
The King of the Cracksmen is an explosive, action-packed look at a Victorian empire that never was, part To Catch a Thief, part Little Big Man. It’s steampunk like you’ve never seen it before, a murder mystery in a foreign world where no one is who they seem to be and danger lurks around every corner.
Reviews
“Grabbed me from the opening explosion, and hurtled towards the conclusion far too quickly. When is the next one?!”
—Phil Foglio, co-creator of Girl Genius
“Just when steampunk has started to run out of steam, King of the Cracksmen arrives to inject a new level of inventiveness, action and sheer craziness into the genre.”
— K. W. Jeter, author of Infernal Devices and Fiendish Schemes
“Rousingly violent, funny, sometimes shockingly profane.”
—Kirkus (starred review)
“[O’Flaherty] draws upon both the kind of academic background that makes scholars sit up and take notice, yet it's hard not to figure him for the cyberpunk love child of Agatha Christie and William Gibson. . . King of the Cracksmen is a multi-layered treat, and you're going to read it twice.”
—Huffington Post
"There isn't much room to catch your metaphorical breath in King of the Cracksmen. The plot steams ahead like one of the Acme robotic police that are patrolling O'Flaherty's alternate United States."
—Summer Reading Project
"A lot of fun moments in this debut steampunk adventure."
—Library Journal
