Jammy Dodgers on the Run

This lively novel treads a constant line between the improbable and the impossible. The author clearly knows a lot about Victorian London, and has also made good use of a contemporary Dictionary of Slang. But the young characters she creates, with their jokey attitude to crime and their touching loyalty to each other, come straight from sentimental novel-land, where comforting fantasies are always preferred to harsh truths. That said, there is still sufficient momentum in the various adventures here to take readers through to a somewhat creaky finale, where melodrama ultimately turns into farce.