Young William Jones discovers that his dying father is a swindler. When he sets out for London to right the wrongs his father has done to his old partner, Diamond, he finds the backstreets less than welcoming and all kinds of horrors lying in wait...

This book was a winner of the Whitbread Award.

Leon Garfield is a master-storyteller, and has a strong sense of historic language. He writes moral adventure stories with melodramatic plots and strong characters: his literary roots are most definitely Dickensian. He is an author we recommend very highly.