On a stormy night in Victorian London, scruffy lad named Dodger emerges from the sewers to rescue a young woman who has thrown herself from a carriage to escape from the men assaulting her. Young Dodger is a tosher, one who scours the sewers for things of value that has washed in and settled in the muck. Saving the young woman starts him on a path that leads him to a friendship with Charles Dickens (to be a model for the Artful Dodger, perhaps) and acquaintances with Sweeney Todd, Benjamin Disraeli, Robert Peel, Queen Victoria, and Prince Albert. Happenstance turns him into a hero in the eyes of the Londoners. All Dodger wants to do is keep the young woman from being sent back to her abusive husband and hopefully claim her for himself. In the process he finds himself dining with the "Nobs" and being sought by an assassin known only as the Outlander. This is one of a handful of novels by Pratchett that is not part of the Discworld series but is still full of the author's signature humor. The audiobook was read by Stephen Briggs, a master of English dialects.
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