Montmorency: thief, liar, gentleman -- Eleanor Updale

This made me want to watch the old Raffles movies. And read the books.

I suspect (and hope) that this book will be the first in a series. How's that for a recommendation? Montmorency: thief, liar, gentleman? was a blast.

A thief in Victorian England has the misfortune to fall through a skylight while running from the police. He's badly hurt—badly enough that even now, in 2004, it would be a rotten recovery—and without Doctor Fawcett's experimental new medicine and treatments, he would have died, or at the very least, he would have been crippled for life. The doctor's achievement is so amazing that Montmorency is brought from one scientific lecture to another, so that others can learn about the new techniques. At one of these lectures, he learns about the new sewer system that has been constructed under London. And so his planning begins.

It was wonderful. Secret identities, awful (and wonderful) characters, total gross-out scenes, and a lot of pretty realistic description of the time period. Fun fun fun.