posted on 02 Jul 2023

The Grinning Throat by Kate Wiseman

As Charles Dickens was at pains to point out to his readers, the rapid slide from moderate ‘respectability’ to dire poverty was harsh in Victorian London. This interesting, award winning author pulls no punches in communicating the same message to a younger audience as she introduces them to Joe and Edie, an orphaned brother and sister who have been forced by dreadful circumstance to become full time mudlarks on the River Thames. They have been well educated by their late father who used to be a librarian, but their new life is very different. Their often gruesome occupation involves coming across nasty and dangerous rubbish in the poisonous water including, one morning, the dead body that is lying in the muddy foreshore.

The plot thickens when they discover that the corpse is a police detective who has been the bodyguard to Princess Magdalena of Upper Ruritania. She has since been kidnapped by the infamous Grinning Throat gang who have demanded a hefty ransom. The frightened siblings decide to report the body to the police but are dismissed as time wasters. When they then involve Mr Goode who was their father’s kind and gentle friend, he is arrested and charged with the murder!

Readers will share the deep sense of injustice and be rightly appalled at how most adults, including some police officers, prove to be unreliable and corrupt. How can they prove his innocence? When Edie is threatened by Hempson, a disreputable character who sometimes receives found items of value from Joe, but who also fences stolen goods, the stakes seem to be getting higher by the minute. Joe needs to call on the help of others like himself who live on the margins of society. These include resilient survivors like ‘Union’ Jack, a young man who has many useful skills that will be helpful in tracking down the Grinning Throat gang and hopefully the Princess as well.

I really liked the way in which the author wove in plenty of social history through her vivid descriptions of the environment. As the characters made their way through the busy and overcrowded streets we get a visceral sense of what it must have been like - pretty grim. Joe and Edie are given temporary sanctuary in the cosy, secret space behind a puppet makers workshop where Jack lives. This provides a fairy tale like world where they can relax and even enjoy reading an impressive pile of books together. He also has a treasure trove of pilfered clothing which means that they can find disguises to move safely through London, and enjoy playing at dressing up at the same time.

Tracking down criminals is a dangerous business whereby Joe has a taste of a disreputable opium den which also turns out to be linked to the trafficking of young girls. Here he meets Ottilie, an American girl who has been abandoned by her drug addict father and left to fend for herself. Joe soon realises that Hempson is at the centre of the terrible things that go on there. After helping the girl to escape, she joins the other children in their secret hideout and together they plot and plan to bring about the downfall of the evil man.

I am not going to reveal the shocking denouement because you will want to read it for yourself. As this is the first book in a series, it is clear that this resourceful little band of outsiders will be having plenty more exciting adventures. This intriguing, fast paced first instalment aimed at readers aged 11+ is available to order direct from the publisher:  www.zuntold.com

 

Karen Argent
July 2023