Now we come to the person who made my smile broaden even further, when I realised “Angela” was to feature. No, he is not intending to sell it, and distribute the money to the many starving orphans/girls driven to prostitution who populate the book: in an Animal Farm like ending, Dodger is stealing Marie Antoinette's tiara for his new wife, a former Princess. Angela Burdett-Coutts was an independent woman who had inherited a large sum of money, and who used her wealth and connections to help those who needed it.

Terry Pratchett Books | Waterstones Terry Pratchett Books | Waterstones

Ultimately, this can be viewed as either a competently written, watered-down Dickens fanfic (Dodger's real name is 'Pip Stick'. The government does not want to get involved, though, as knowingly harboring a fugitive from the German states might cause turmoil to their country-to-country politics. Photograph: Richard Saker/The Guardian ‘Your reward for doing something good is to do something else good’ … Terry Pratchett. It is she who took in Simplicity after it became clear that she was not safe at the Mayhews’ house and who uses her resources to protect her. Fortunately, the adventures he got into over the course of the book give him the contacts he needs to find a better job within a chapter.

Prince Charmless: While at first she thought he was a regular Prince Charming, Simplicity's husband quickly morphs into one after his father makes it clear that he's less than pleased about their marriage. When the chance arose to review Dodger, a stand-alone young-adult book, I just had to give it another shot. In this case we have “The Outlander”, a wanted assassin who has been hired to kill Simplicity and Dodger. In the novel Henry Mayhew is also very interested in improving the conditions for London’s poorest citizens. Just to be clear: there were no actual bodies in need of burying during my more than 20 years of working with Terry Pratchett.

Terry Pratchett Books | Terry Pratchett

After Terry was diagnosed with Posterior Cortical Atrophy, a rare form of Alzheimer’s disease, in 2007, at the cruelly early age of 59, I began to accompany him at public appearances, reading for him when he no longer could, helping him through interviews on stage as “keeper of the anecdote”. He is introduced as a member of parliament and is to play a supporting role in Dodger’s scheme to fake Simplicity’s death. Author Terry Pratchett employs a narrative voice that's perfectly pitched to the material and which offers many sly pleasures. I personally found the plot of the novel to be relatively linear, like Dickens’s shorter novels rather than his massive and complex middle period tomes.The only reason Dodger is able to save her in the first place is because she managed to get out of the carriage, and that wasn't even the first time she'd done it. Some people seemed to think that the best way to keep a secret was to tell as many people as possible; what could possibly go wrong for a secret when there were so many people defending it? He escaped a Cossack pogrom in Russia by the skin of his teeth, and still keeps a pepperbox revolver, just in case. Neil, at this point in his life, was largely allergic to the morning and would wake around lunchtime to flurries of crisp answerphone messages from his collaborator, which were generally variations on the theme of “Get up, you lazy bastard”. We get to see Dodger trying to right a wrong, trying to track down villains that are beating up young girls, and much more.