good teen read ( )

Most enjoyable will retain in library

I really enjoyed this book! It was quite a find at my school's book fair. Just enough historical background to make you feel like you are there, without being too much to weigh down the story for young readers. I was totally wrapped up in what was going to happen to Montmorency. Was he going to go straight? Would he get caught again?

Call me naughty, but I was rooting for the bad guy. ( )

“But it is time for you to go. Your possessions will be returned to you downstairs. You have been given the chance of life, 493. I hope you will take the opportunity to make that life one of industry and law-abiding behavior.”

So says the warden to Prisoner 493–also known as Montmorency also known as Scarper. While languishing for three years in the bowels of a Victorian England prison, Montmorency vows to reinvent himself–multiple reinventions really–as a thief, a liar, and a gentleman.

Montmorency’s time in jail is the result of his having been caught as a thief. During his capture, he suffers grievous physical injuries. In fact, Montmorency’s injuries are so grave that an up-and-coming London doctor, Doctor Farcett, is permitted to perform experimental treatments on him.

The treatments save Montmorency’s life and begin to heal of his physical injuries but, simultaneously, they augment his emotional pain over life’s inequities. As a part of his treatments, Montmorency attends meetings of the Scientific Society where he is humiliated as a specimen under examination but also where he learns about the underground sewage system of London. The seeds of a plan for revenge against society’s upper classes begin to sprout.

Montmorency resolves to create dual identities—he will enter London’s underground as Scarper, a sewer navigator who uses the routes to accomplish his thefts and to pave the way for the success of his above-ground persona, Montmorency. Using the goods he attains as Scarper, Montmorency lives the life of a refined gentleman and, in so doing, he defies the seemingly insurmountable Victorian class divisions of his day.

Updale fills her story with secret identities, complex characters, period details, scatological references, daring deeds, narrow escapes, and more vice than virtue. Social and economic disparities drive much of the action–while wealthy gentlemen spend the days at their club, the poorer classes spend the days doing what it takes (legal or no) to survive. Montmorency’s dual identities begin to foster identity confusion, and Montmorency/Scarper finds himself facing choices as to which version of himself he wants to control of his life–the thief, the liar, or the gentleman.

As a work for young adults, Montmorency: Thief, Liar, Gentleman is unusual as its characters are not young adults (the same holds true for the subsequent works in the series), and its main character is more antihero than hero. Montmorency: Thief, Liar, Gentleman harkens back to Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in which one man confronts some unpleasant facts about the conflicting parts of his nature. More modern offerings that contain elements of history, mystery, adventure, and crime in historical England can be found in works by authors such as Chris Priestley, Iain Lawrence, Avi (Traitors Gate), and Paul Bajoria (Printer’s Devil). Montmorency: Thief, Liar, Gentleman is the first book in the series starring Montmorency. ( )

Montmorency was a great book to read but it was boring. Most of the time it was a good book but when the boring points hit they lasted for almost two-five chapters at a time. ( )