London, the 1790s. Europe has been turned upside down by the French Revolution and the bloody Terror that followed it. Plots and conspiracies seem to be edging England towards war with France. And operating undercover across the city is a gang of revolutionary 'terrorists' armed with a machine unlike any the world has ever seen. They call it the Air Loom and it works by magnetism, sending invisible rays into the minds of its victims, forcing thoughts into their heads, tormenting them with unbearable agonies if they resist. They now have control of politicians and generals. But the only man aware of the Air Loom Gang and their diabolical machine is a tea merchant from Wales called James Tilly Matthews. And he is a long- term resident of the Bethlem Royal Hospital, otherwise known as Bedlam. THE AIR LOOM GANG is the remarkable true story of James Tilly Matthews. Incarcerated in the world's most notorious madhouse, his delusions became celebrated as the most bizarre ever recorded and he remains one of psychiatry's most famous cases- the first man to believe that his mind was being controlled by an 'influencing machine'. But the truth of his case was even stranger than his doctors realized: many of the incredible conspiracies in which he claimed to have been involved were, it transpires, entirely real... Set in a world bedevilled by conspiracy and paranoia and shining a light into the darkest recesses of Georgian England, THE AIR LOOM GANG reads like the most gripping detective story. More than just a fascinating and improbable tale and one of the most colourful case studies in the history of madness, it paints a startling portrait of a society poised at the brink of the modern age.