Excerpt from Fagin the Thief by Allison Epstein, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

1
1838
London

The sun isn't yet up over Bell Court, and already someone is screaming.

It's not, however, a familiar scream, and so Jacob ignores it. There's a select circle of people whose screams he knows intimately, and for surety of whose well-being he will sacrifice the sear on a pan of sausages to investigate a cry in the dark. But whoever's screaming through the uncertain light slipping into the narrow court is a stranger, and one who sounds more angry than frightened. Well, Jacob thinks, twirling the toasting-fork so it catches the firelight, there's a great deal in the world to be angry about. If some stranger can't bear the trials of life without howling in the streets about it, that's none of his affair.

He flips one of the sausages—a little early; its exterior is beginning to toast but is not yet fully browned. He settles into his chair, drawing his scarlet dressing-gown back from where it slipped to expose his throat and the ridges of his collarbones. Behind him, an old clothes-horse sags under the weight of some two dozen squares of patterned silk, which he'll spend the day laundering and ironing and sorting when the sun is properly up. The value of stolen goods, he's learned over the decades he's been dealing in them, is at least half in their presentation. Properly pressed and folded, this collection of ordinary pocket-handkerchiefs could go for three shillings, provided someone with a suitably respectable demeanor is brokering the deal. And while a respectable demeanor isn't something he possesses, he knows several places where one might borrow an upright-looking individual for a reasonable fee. The screaming is closer now. Some thief, he gathers, wasn't as subtle as the profession requires, and what should have been a quick maneuver devolved into a chase. As long as it's not one of his boys, it's all the same to him. After sentencing a thief Jacob doesn't care about to six months in Bridewell, the police will move on, leaving the thieves he does care about to their business. Certainly Charley isn't to blame for the commotion outside: just now, he stumbles into the room with his hair in disarray from sleep, his shirt creased and drooping off the left shoulder. At eleven, Charley Bates looks even younger than when Jacob met him at nine. Then, the boy was all hard edges and anxiety, but two years with a roof over his head and someone to cook him breakfast if he steals the raw materials have rekindled his childishness. It makes him a liability in their line of work, but Jacob can't bring himself to frighten the endearing brainlessness out of the boy. Charley sits cross-legged in front of the fire, eyeing the sausages with intent.

Jacob kicks at him with the side of his slippered foot, like nudging a dog away from a roast. "Wait your turn, Charley."

Charley scowls. "Dodger's not here. 'S only me, and I don't see why I should wait."

"Because you'll eat the lot of it, you shameless little tramp, and in this house those who work first eat first."

"I'll work," Charley insists.

"I'll expect it. You know I'm not in the habit of paying in advance."

Flipping the second sausage reveals that he's waited the proper time—the poorly ventilated room begins to smell of toasted meat, and if that won't call Dodger in, Jacob isn't sure what will. He spears one of the sausages with the toasting-fork and holds it out to Charley, who seizes it so eagerly he hardly seems to notice his burning fingertips.

The door at the end of the passage bangs open, and for a moment the sound of shouting from the street surges to full volume. It's cause for attention, but not yet for alarm. Still, beneath the surface, Jacob is always ready to run underground. There are ways out of this house that no one knows about, not even the boys, and he intends to keep it that way. It's not that he specifically doesn't trust them to know about the passage downstairs, more that he's never trusted anyone with anything, and this attitude has seen him reach the age of fifty-one with all his limbs still attached.

Excerpted from Fagin the Thief by Allison Epstein. Copyright © 2025 by Allison Epstein. Excerpted by permission of Doubleday. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.