NOT ALL TARTS ARE APPLE
Pip Granger, . . Poisoned Pen, $24.95 (219pp) ISBN 978-1-59058-033-2
During Queen Elizabeth's coronation summer of 1953, Rosie, a seven-year-old waif living above an Old Compton Street café with the owners (a couple she calls Auntie Maggie and Uncle Bert), learns something about her unknown parentage in this captivating first novel. Granger, a native of London's bohemian Soho district, celebrates London low life—a Dickensian rogues' gallery of pimps, prostitutes, con men, thieves and shady lawyers—through the engaging voice of her endearing young heroine. "It's Edward VIII, miss," Rosie tells her teacher, eager to contribute to a class discussion about the new queen's family. "He was having it off with that Simpson woman, my auntie Maggie said so. Terrible it was. She was a divorced woman, miss,
Reviewed on: 10/07/2002
Genre: Fiction
Hardcover - 329 pages - 978-0-593-04795-8
Mass Market Paperbound - 336 pages - 978-0-552-14895-5
Open Ebook - 336 pages - 978-1-4464-3794-0
Paperback - 224 pages - 978-0-14-200332-9