Little Bones - Hardcover

"Compelling...a fine novel: the best kind of historical fiction" (Judith Flanders TLS)

It's 1899. London. A young girl is abandoned by her feckless family and finds lodging and work assisting a doctor. But Jane Stretch is no ordinary girl, and Mr Swift is no ordinary doctor...Jane does her best to keep up with the doctor, her twisted bones throbbing, as they hurry past the markets, stage doors and side shows to appointments in certain boarding houses across town. The young actresses who live there have problems, and Mr Swift does what is required, calmly and discreetly. Grateful to her benefactor and his wife, Jane assists him and asks no questions - the desperate young women not minding that it is a cripple girl who wipes their brows...When this unlikely pair become involved with a rakish music hall star, Johnny Treble, who calls on Swift's help for his rich mistress's predicament, it seems that Jane's spell of good fortune is not going to last. The police come knocking - how will the doctor explain the absence of his medical certificates? How will they explain their connection to Johnny Treble's sudden death? And how will Jane argue her innocence? It seems that no amount of wand waving will make their problems disappear. Little Bones conjures a tawdry, tantalising, troubling world of unclear morality and conflicting sympathies - richly evocative and full of curiosities. Two people act against their consciences simply to get by, and the choices we make are called into question. Is it possible to commit abhorrent acts without being corrupted by them?