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

"Haven't you any manners?" Jacob says to Dodger. "Do we not introduce guests anymore, just let them wander in like sheep?"

Dodger's grin becomes, against all laws of anatomy, wider. "Oliver, this is old Mr. Fagin, him as I told you about," he says. "And Miss Nancy, a friend. Fagin, Nan, this is Oliver Twist. Walked here from Tadley, so he tells me. I met him on the way."

Despite himself, Jacob stares. Tadley is fifty miles from London if it's an inch. The improbably named Oliver Twist watches him with something between terror and defiance, two things Jacob is perfectly prepared to work with.

"Not a bad distance for a morning stroll, my boy," he says, recovering his composure. "Come, sit. There's sausages left, if you've worked up an appetite."

Oliver stares at him with the same wide, hungry eyes Fagin remembers seeing in Charley's face, and Dodger's, and Toby's, and, in what feels like another life, the reflection of his own. "Yes, Mr. Fagin, sir," Oliver says. "Please."

It's impossible to say who laughs first or loudest, Dodger or Nan or Jacob himself. Regardless, it's Dodger who thumps the boy on the back and steers him into the chair, still chuckling.

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.