Dodger of the Dials
In this, James Benmore’s second Jack “Artful Dodger” Dawkins adventure, our hero has served his transportation sentence in Australia and returned to London. He now heads a gang of thieves in the Seven Dials rookery. But there are problems; the pickings are small and an important job goes badly wrong. When the ruthless Billy Slade, head of a new, more successful gang, offers Dodger a business deal, Dodger accepts. But how far can he trust Slade?
Not far, it turns out. Dodger is framed for a murder he never committed and condemned to hang. But then a young reporter by the name of Oliver Twist – an old acquaintance and one Dodger dislikes – offers to take on his case. Can Oliver uncover the truth before Dodger’s frighteningly imminent execution? And can Dodger trust Oliver enough to give him the information he needs about Billy Slade and his activities?
I really enjoyed this. Benmore creates a number of believable characters, like Dodger’s determined girlfriend Lily, whose fates we care about, and his depictions of the Victorian underworld and the horrors of Newgate prison are repulsively, and accurately, graphic. The pace is terrific with enough twists and turns to keep the reader turning over the pages. I also enjoyed the ambivalent relationship between the cynical, knowing Dodger and the stripling reporter, Oliver Twist, whom Dodger hates as a ‘peacher’ whose evidence led to Fagin’s death and whose information gave Bill Sikes the chance to murder Nancy.
But the Oliver who is gradually revealed is no longer the sanctimonious prig he was as a child, but a young man of integrity and courage. The readers can look forward to more of their edgy and tension-filled relationship in Dodger’s further adventures, I’m sure. Dodger of the Dials is a terrific read; I thoroughly recommend it.
