The Carpetbagger

London, 1882 - A wet, drizzle-bedevilled summer. The sort of weather that turned beer flat, made bread go mouldy and flooded pavements with puddles. In this setting a former fist-fighter and his fellow chancer are making a living mugging well-to-do types who visit the East End seeking pleasure. But this once profitable partnership develops a problem...The story that unfolds is narrated first-person with cheek and humour; fuelled on a mix of street-stall pies, print-shop tea and the hope that luck will always prevail.Not everything is as it seems though - there are secrets and this lifestyle, funded by petty crime, soon leads to a deadly plot involving a crooked pawnshop owner, an Afrikaner and the head of the British Empire...