Oranges and Murder

Joey is a London costermonger, selling fruit and vegetables to make a meagre living. His ambitions are simple -- a home of his own with his beloved Rose and enough money to start his own business. However, there are complications -- a mystery surrounds his birth as it is rumoured that he is the illegitimate offspring of Lord Rivers' daughter. Then Quill Quennell, the screever who has been teaching him to read and write, is found murdered and the peelers have marked Joey for the crime. Prince's London is alive with colour, in both character and setting, vividly recreating the cramped living conditions of the costers and their unfailing brotherhood. Period detail abounds and as the mystery of Quennell's death unfolds it becomes clear that it is very much a product of the times. He was just as much at the mercy of the upper classes as the illiterate Joey -- snared by his addiction to opium and betrayed by his own kind. The plot twists and turns with absolute veracity and the seductively neat fairy tale ending is carefully avoided to give a conclusion far more rooted in the gritty realism which pervades the narrative.