Carpetbagger

London, Summer 1882 - a wet, drizzle-bedevilled summer.

The sort of weather that turned beer flat, made bread go mouldy and flooded pavements with puddles.

In this setting a lad and a former fist-fighter are making a living mugging well-to-do types who visit the East End seeking pleasure.

But this once profitable partnership develops a problem... The story that unfolds is narrated first-person with cheek and humour by the lad; fuelled on a mix of street-stall pies, print-shop tea and the hope that luck will always prevail. But this lifestyle funded by petty crime soon leads the lad into a deadly plot involving a crooked pawnshop owner, an Afrikaner and the head of the British Empire