Mog Winter is the printer’s devil: “the youngest apprentice in a printing shop,” (or, in this case, the only apprentice), and an orphan who lives in a small room above the shop in Clerkenwell, not far from the New Prison and the stinking River Fleet. Despite the long hours and low pay, Mog’s job has its perks—it’s better than not having work at all, and it means being in the know about the life of the city: “If there was any meeting called, or play to be performed, or auction to be held, or curious object to be displayed, or items stolen, or convicts escaped, or persons to be hanged, or corpses found drowned, or loved ones gone missing, chances were we’d know about it. It used to make me feel quietly important, walking through the streets of London and seeing the huge inky letters of my own posters plastered across brick walls and wooden fences. They made people happy, and curious, and afraid; they made people talk” (p 3).
Speaking of the city, Bajoria’s descriptions of London are really pleasing: I love the dark alleyways and narrow streets, where “the houses on either side of the lanes leaned inwards at the top until they almost touched, so the sunlight could hardly get through” (p 10), and the crowds and noise of the docks by the Thames, where Mog goes to see a ship called the Sun of Calcutta, just back from India. The docks are full of thieves, and Mog follows a pair of them, which leads to some mysteries and (mis)adventures. I remembered that Megan had read this book a few years ago, and had liked it but not loved it, though I couldn’t remember why. But oh, right, it was the plot. I agree that it’s not clear why Mog gets so involved in the affairs of the thieves and the Sun of Calcutta (and Mog even says as much, at one point), but the descriptions, both of the city and the details of everyday life in and out of the printer’s shop, are good enough that I didn’t much mind. How could I, with passages like this one, describing a golden lantern Mog sees?
It was the most beautiful object I’d ever laid eyes on. Its flame extinguished, it was revolving slowly with the motion of the ship, firing sparkles of golden light back at me as the daylight struck its intricate surface. I couldn’t imagine how any goldsmith could have made this: surely it must have been created, like the sun, by something or someone beyond the scope of our knowledge. It was breathtaking, magnificent, a dense basket of fine, glinting, crisscrossed lacework, made entirely of gold, sending its bright reflections over the furniture and walls of the little cabin. For a moment I stood spellbound, hypnotised by its beauty. A jewelled globe; a ball of bright tears. (p 88)
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