Dodger by Terry Pratchett
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Dodger is a seventeen year old Londoner who makes his living by toshing – scrounging in the city sewers for salvage. When he sees a girl trying to escape from her kidnappers, he gets involved and ends up saving her from them.
Thus begins the widening of Dodger’s horizons, as he meets Charles Dickens and they team up to solve the mystery of who this golden haired woman is and why someone powerful wants her dead. Along the way, Dodger finds himself going through several makeovers and rapidly climbing the social ladder, meeting Sweeney Todd, Robert Peel and Benjamin Disraeli before being presented to Queen Victoria herself.
A historical novel, rather than the discworld novels Pratchett usually writes, Dodger is a competent Dickensian style tale of Victorian England.
While I enjoyed reading this, something was missing. I’m not sure if I was expecting a Discworld novel and was let down, or whether my awareness of Pratchett’s illnes coloured my reading, but it didn’t really feel like a Pratchett novel to me.
While I enjoyed reading this, I’m unlikely to revisit it.
prk.
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