The Thief's Apprentice

by Bryan Methods

Overview

Oliver, the meek son of a wealthy British industrialist, discovers the identity of a notorious thief, a man who has been skillfully evading Scotland Yard and snatching priceless artifacts for sport: Mr. Scant, his family butler. After first fearing for his life, Oliver discovers Mr. Scant's secret within a secret: the butler's crimes are actually a series of strikes against an underground group of business tycoons trying to master black magic.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781512418835
Publisher:	Lerner Publishing Group
Publication date:	11/01/2024
Series:	Master Diplexito and Mr. Scant , #1
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	276
File size:	5 MB
Age Range:	10 - 14 Years

About the Author

Bryan Methods grew up in the sleepy village of Crowhurst, on the south coast of the United Kingdom.

After studying English at Trinity College, Cambridge, he found work as a professional drummer, which lasted as long as it took for the singer and guitarist to fall out and split up the band. He then returned to Cambridge for a Master’s in Screen Media and Cultures, specializing in animation.

He is in his final year of his doctoral thesis on the poetry of World War I at Royal Holloway, University of London, but currently lives and works in Tokyo, Japan. He is interested in alternative Japanese fashion, music, and cosplay. He also enjoys fencing, video games, and capoeira.

Editorial Reviews

"Twists and intrigue abound. . . . The writing is formal but clever, embracing robust vocabulary without feeling pedantic. . . . [T]he premise is appealing."—Booklist

From the Publisher

2016-07-02
An English schoolboy hones both wits and breaking-and-entering skills after the family butler enlists him for a series of dangerous secret missions.Oliver, 12-year-old scion of the head of Diplexito Engineering and Combustibles Ltd., is stunned to learn that the forbidding Mr. Scant is a mysterious burglar popularly known as the Ruminating Claw—for the bladed mechanical contraption he wears on one hand. This revelation is followed by mounting excitement as the white lad learns that Scant is really engaged in returning artifacts stolen from various museums by a secret group of would-be mages known as the Woodhouselee Society. Better yet, Scant wants him along to help! Ensuing nighttime outings to the British Museum and elsewhere give Oliver not only an eyeful of awesome martial feats from Scant, but heartening tests of his own previously untried courage as dust-ups with baddies led by cleaver-wielding giantess Valkyrie build to a climactic imbroglio featuring dirigibles (this is 1910, with some alterations) and a heavily armed “land ironclad.” A last-minute ally named Cai Zhao-Ji and some of the aforementioned bad guys, who belong to the Asian Tri-Loom crime syndicate, are the only characters of color. Methods’ fights are the sort in which there’s always time for dialogue, combatants don’t die or even bleed when they’re wounded, and the deadliest adversary abruptly withers under a good scolding. The fight choreography needs work but otherwise, a promising debut and series opener. (Fantasy. 10-12)

Kirkus Reviews