‘Whitehead has travelled widely and read deeply, deftly managing an abundance of primary sources including a swathe of official records and numerous diaries and letters written by Napoleon and his associates – many of which could only be read in French. She shows considerable skill in managing a cast of characters who were intent upon confuddling the authorities with their intrigues. She also does a fine job of demonstrating how the exalted cult of Napoleon existed in stark contrast to the conditions he experienced on St Helena, where rats were said to infest his bedroom, and both his mattress and his poultry were considered “impossibly thin”.

Whitehead also recounts her own adventures as an intrepid history detective who travelled to St Helena, Madras in India, Paris and Saint-Omer in France, as well as Scotland, Sussex and “bleak Dartmoor”. In St Helena, Whitehead found Napoleon’s grave empty and much of Betsy’s childhood home greatly changed or stiffly memorialised. Nonetheless, by tracing the towns and streets once inhabited by the Balcombes, the author provides us with a potent sense of the residue of the nineteenth century British world and how it continues to exert a presence even now.’