Dodger by Terry Pratchett

Fantasy

From the Author’s website:

Dodger is a tosher - a sewer scavenger living in the squalor of Dickensian London.

Everyone who is nobody knows Dodger. Anyone who is anybody doesn't.

But when he rescues a young girl from a beating, suddenly everybody wants to know him.

And Dodger's tale of skulduggery, dark plans and even darker deeds begins .

He’s cunning. He’s artful. He’s Terry Pratchett’s DODGER

.

A storm. Rain-lashed city streets. A flash of lightning. A scruffy lad sees a girl leap desperately from a horse-drawn carriage in a vain attempt to escape her captors. Can the lad stand by and let her be caught again? Of course not, because he’s … Dodger.

Seventeen-year-old Dodger may be a street urchin, but he gleans a living from London’s sewers, and he knows a jewel when he sees one. He’s not about to let anything happen to the unknown girl—not even if her fate impacts some of the most powerful people in England.

From Dodger’s encounter with the mad barber Sweeney Todd to his meetings with the great writer Charles Dickens and the calculating politician Benjamin Disraeli, history and fantasy intertwine in a breathtaking account of adventure and mystery.

Beloved and bestselling author Sir Terry Pratchett combines high comedy with deep wisdom in this tale of an unexpected coming-of-age and one remarkable boy’s rise in a complex and fascinating world.

Writing this one up is difficult.  I loved the book but it is hard to define it.  Dodger is just like the description above.  He is fun, inventive, and very much his own person.  He is much better person than he thinks he is.  There are two things that help change his life.  Both of those involve helping save someone from being beaten and killed.  In both cases it would have been very easy of Dodger to walk away and not help.  It is fun to see him interact with famous people.  I especially like Charlie Dickens and how Terry Pratchett used things from Dickens novels in the story.

I found Dodger to be a really fun read.  Since this is just the third Terry Pratchett novel I have read I really can’t compare it to previous books. I would recommend you give it a try.

 Harper Collins published Dodger by Terry Pratchett in 2012. 

I received a eARC of Dodger from NetGalley.  Dodger is scheduled to be