Once a Monster

‘Robert Dinsdale mixes history and mythology with great panache . . . Richly textured and with an appropriately labyrinthine plot . . . Book of the Month’ Sunday Times

Man or monster? Hero or villain?

London, 1861: Ten-year-old Nell belongs to a crew of mudlarks who work a stretch of the Thames along the Ratcliffe Highway. An orphan since her mother died four years past, leaving Nell with only broken dreams and a pair of satin slippers in her possession, she spends her days dredging up coals,...