2012 book 185

Terry Pratchett's Dodger
A few days ago, this article appeared in my Google Reader. At the time I was like, "well, that's interesting or whatever" but it turned out to be perfect background reading for the new Terry Pratchett book, whose main character is a tosher--and Mayhew himself appears as well. It's a classic Victorian adventure story--in fact, I would go so far as to call it Dickensian, mainly because Dickens is one of the secondary characters, and the book is full of references to his work (and to other bits of London history and literature--I was delighted whenever I recognized a reference, and I'm sure there were many I missed). Dodger himself is clearly a relative of Dickens' Artful Dodger, and his landlord/father figure is an awesome old Jewish guy (don't worry, not very Fagin-like in the least, a relief to this Jewish reader). Anyway, things get going when Dodger rescues a mysterious girl from a mysterious attack, but of course it's never really that simple in a story like this. A very fun standalone one from Pratchett, for sure. A-.

__
An e-galley was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in September.