Once a Monster

by Robert Dinsdale

ISBN: 9781529097399

Published: 2024-09-05

'Robert Dinsdale mixes history and mythology with great panache . . . Richly textured and with an appropriately labyrinthine plot . . . Book of the Month' Sunday Times Man or monster? Hero or villain? London, 1861: Ten-year-old Nell belongs to a crew of mudlarks who work a stretch of the Thames along the Ratcliffe Highway. An orphan since her mother died four years past, leaving Nell with only broken dreams and a pair of satin slippers in her possession, she spends her days dredging up coals, copper and pieces of iron spilled by the river barges - searching for treasure in the mud in order to appease her master, Benjamin Murdstone. But one day, Nell discovers a body on the shore. It's not the first corpse she's encountered, but it's by far the strangest. Nearly seven feet tall, the creature has matted hair covering his legs, and on his head is the suggestion of horns. Nell's fellow mudlarks urge her to steal his boots and rifle his pockets, but as she ventures closer the figure...