Dodger

Dodger
by Terry Pratchett
HarperCollins, 2012.  360 pgs. Young Adult.

Dodger is a tosher and a thief, whatever it takes to keep body and soul together in Victorian London. He lives with a man named Solomon whom he saved from misfortune and as the book begins, he saves someone else--a young lady trying to escape from ruffians carrying her off in a coach, against her will. Along comes help in the form of one Charlie Dickens (you will have heard of him), and Henry Mayhew, who takes the girl home to be attended to, and Dodger along with them. Soon the 17-year-old is caught up in a foreign plot to bring the young lady home to a so-called husband who despises her, but needs her for some sort of alliance between nations. England is in a tough spot, not wanting to give her up, but bound by international law to return her to her husband.  Dodger must save the day, with the help of lots more historical characters including Sir Robert Peel, Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of Fleet Street, Benjamin Disraeli, and Queen Victoria herself. Saints be praised that Sir Terry's early-onset Alzheimer's is of the slow-advancing variety, so that he can still bless us with stories such as these--funny, a bit naughty, filled with wordplay (keep an eye out for titles of Dickens' novels worked into the text), and nourishing. 

LW