Excerpt from Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

The porter lowers the newspaper. Flakes of pastry cling to his mustache. He looks unconcerned.

"A man's dying," states Dean. "Didn't yer hear me?"

"'Course I did. You're shouting in my face."

"Then send help! Yer a bloody hospital, aren't yer?"

The porter snorts inwards, deep and hard. "Withdraw a hefty sum of money from a bank prior to your encounter with this 'Dr. Hopkins,' did you?"

"Yeah. Fifty quid. So?"

The porter flicks crumbs off his lapel. "Still in possession of that money, are you, son?"

"It's here." Dean reaches into his coat for his bankbook. It's not there. It must be. He tries his other pockets. A trolley squeaks by. A kid's bawling his eyes out. "Shit—­I must've dropped it on the way over."

"Sorry, son. You've been hustled."

Dean remembers the man falling against his chest. "No. No. It was a real heart attack. He could hardly stand up." He checks his pockets again. The money's still missing.

"It's cold comfort," says the porter, "but you're our fifth since November. Word's got round. Every hospital and clinic in central London has stopped sending stretchers for anyone called Hopkins. It's a wild goose chase. There's never anyone there."

"But they." Dean feels nauseous. "But they."

"Are you about to say, 'They didn't look like pickpockets'?"

Dean was. "How could he've known I had money on me?"

"What'd you do if you were going fishing for a nice fat wallet?"

Dean thinks. The bank. "They watched me make the withdrawal. Then they followed me."

The porter takes a bite of sausage roll. "Hole in one, Sherlock."

"But. most o' that money was to pay for my guitar, and—­" Dean remembers Mrs. Nevitt. "Oh shit. The rest was my rent. How do I pay my rent?"

"You could file a report at the cop shop, but don't hold your breath. For the Old Bill, Soho's surrounded by signs saying, 'Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here.' "

"My landlady's a bloody Nazi. She'll turf me out."

The porter slurps his tea. "Tell her you lost it trying to be a Good Samaritan. Maybe she'll take pity on you. Who knows?"

Mrs. Nevitt sits by the tall window. The parlor smells of damp and bacon fat. The fireplace looks boarded up. The landlady's ­ledger is open on her writing bureau. Her knitting needles click and tap. A chandelier, forever unlit, hangs from the ceiling. The wall­paper's once-­floral pattern has sunk into a jungle gloom. Photographs of Mrs. Nevitt's three dead husbands glower from their gilt frames. "Morning, Mrs. Nevitt."

"Barely, Mr. Moss."

"Yeah, well, uh." Dean's throat is dry. "I've been robbed."

The knitting needles stop. "How very unfortunate."

"Not half. I got out my rent money, but two pickpockets did me over on Denmark Street. They must've seen me cash my bank order and followed me. Daylight robbery. Literally."

"My my my. What a turn-­up."

She thinks I'm spinning her a yarn, thinks Dean.

"More's the pity," Mrs. Nevitt continues, "you didn't persevere at Bretton's, the Royal Printers. That was a proper position. In a respectable part of town. No 'muggings' in Mayfair."

Bretton's was indentured cocksuckery, thinks Dean. "Like I told yer, Mrs. Nevitt, Bretton's didn't work out."

"No concern of mine, I'm sure. My concern is rent. Am I to take it you want more time to pay?"

Dean relaxes, a little. "Honest, I'd be ever so grateful."

Excerpted from Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell. Copyright © 2020 by David Mitchell. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.