Age 9-11

Rich in the detail of Victorian London, from the printers’ shops of Clerkenwell to the dangerous docklands, this impressive debut is the story of Mog, an orphan and printer’s apprentice, who stumbles on a mystery involving a sinister underworld of rogues and murderers. Intrepid to the point of recklessness, Mog tries to unravel the mystery, encountering vivid characters including a violent bosun and his unpleasant paramour, a kindly midget, a corrupt aristocrat, a boy who becomes Mog’s ally, and the elusive “man from Calcutta”. Everywhere Mog goes, some unpleasant goo awaits: Mog hides under a horse, only to be drenched in urine, in a paper-maker’s barrel, only to be coated in gluey rags, and in a cartful of manure. Mog is a winning protagonist and the world of the novel is evoked without staginess or intrusive research, enveloping the reader as the seductive plot unfolds. Its authenticity and intelligent, precise prose are its strengths; its flaw, perhaps, is that the mystery leaves us with questions. The book justifies its open-endedness by having a character say, “the end of a book is very rarely the end of the story”. Maybe that will have to do.

THE PRINTER’S DEVIL by Paul Bajoria

(Simon & Schuster £12.99)

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