The Book
Obadiah Grange by Thom Braun
Twelve months have passed since the events surrounding the mystery of Hungerford Stairs. The young Charles Dickens (‘Charley’) has gone back to school – but a new adventure is about to unfold.
When the body of a young girl is washed up beside the River Thames at Blackfriars Bridge, policeman Robert Hesketh finds himself faced with a new and daunting puzzle. Needing to delve beneath the surface of an itinerant waxworks show that may be the cover for a devilish plot, he calls once again on the services of Charley – ‘The Inimitable’ – the very smart, young man who helped him smash a raft of criminal conspiracies just the year before.
When Charley’s close neighbour and friend, Mary Ann Mitton, disappears, the need to uncover this latest dark network of crime becomes pressingly urgent – and very personal. While Hesketh suspects that several eminent figures are involved in sponsoring a scheme of organised corruption and child abuse, the evidence is thin. Just two words that keep recurring in odd and apparently unrelated ways: Obadiah Grange.
Can Hesketh’s and Charley’s joint efforts to discover the meaning of Obadiah Grange produce results before the tide of abuse claims its next victim?
About the author
Thom Braun's books include a literary biography of Benjamin Disraeli and a summary of Western Philosophy from Heraclitus to Wittgenstein. As a writer of fiction, he is currently engaged on two series of historical mysteries – one based around the young Charles Dickens and the other around the artist William Hogarth.
Why this book
Thom explains: “The world of Charles Dickens has always captivated readers – and the circumstances surrounding his childhood (and its hardships) still inspire surprise and wonder.
When I was looking for a theme to underpin a second mystery in my ‘Untold Tales of Charles Dickens’ series, I decided that the abuse of children is (sadly) as relevant now as it was two hundred years ago. The prologue to the novel has the mature Dickens hoping that future times will bring an end to the exploitation of innocents by (often) well-established figures (mostly men).
However, the fact that modern society still struggles to protect the weak from the empowered convinced me that this is a theme which will continue to resonate with readers – and that the problem, far from being the symptom of a ‘Dickensian’ world, is still something that shames us all.”
What we thought: The second in a series of historical crime mysteries the hero is the young Charles Dickens. A novel includes the subject of abuse of children. A moving novel that deals with a painful but still relevant subject. By Natalie Key for Female First
RELEASE DATE: 28/04/2026 ISBN: 9781806341481 Price: £10.99
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