A review by gargamela
Smith by Leon Garfield

4.0

Smith is a twelve year old boy living in the slums of 19th century London together with a bunch of swindlers and pickpockets. One day he witnesses a crime and steals an important document which he can't read. The story is dark in a Dickensian way, but has a happy ending after a rather anti-climatic discovery of what the document said. I read it in chunks, but I still felt that the story dragged a bit too much in the middle. Nonetheless, this is a great classic story about a child growing up and finding his place in a world dominated by lies and mistrust. It is beautifully written, and it provided me with the opportunity to enjoy myself with some British English humor after a long period of reading only American middle grade books.