THE PRINTER’S DEVIL

Roving the reeking back streets of Victorian London, a printer’s apprentice falls into a bewildering—to readers, at least—tangle of corruption, crime, deceit, betrayal and murder. A case of mistaken identity and an ominous overheard conversation send young Mog into a brutal underworld where thugs war over a shipment of a new, potent drug from India. Carrying a personal secret, anticlimactically revealed partway through, Mog survives repeated brushes with violence, forms an uneasy alliance with a previously unsuspected twin, slips briefly backward in time (or maybe not) and catches tantalizing hints of family tragedy—all on the way to a wild climax that thins the supporting cast considerably, but leaves the waters still thoroughly muddy. Bajoria provides a suitably atmospheric setting, a whiff of the supernatural and plenty of cliffhangers, but leaves so many dots unconnected that the tale needs a sequel to prop it up. (Fiction. 11-13)