No Angels

This is two stories of a pair of young people in different centuries, very tellingly compared and contrasted as they try to remain inside the law in London of today and in the 1850s. Nick Webley is struggling to keep his family from the Workhouse in a hostile Victorian winter when as much luck as wit is needed just to survive. His modern female counterpart, Nikki, is doing much the same. She is a 14-year-old runaway from her mother's lecherous partner. Their stories are deftly related: Nick's in an engagingly illiterate style and Nikki's in up-to-the-minute lingo, complete with text language. The addition of a few letters from a reactionary contemporary correspondent, Cleasby Nossiter, and some transcripts from Magistrate Solomon Stern's 1853 courtroom add an extra thought-provoking dimension. Yet another example of Swindells' uncompromising stance as he comments with scalpel incisiveness on his concerns about the ills of our society as he sees them.