{"title":"Books by Thom Braun","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9781805140108","title":"Hungerford Stairs","description":"\u003cp\u003eFollowing Charles Dickens’s death, his friend and biographer, John Forster, discovers a ‘lost’ manuscript that provides a radically different view of the year the young author spent working in a blacking factory. But is the account fact or fiction?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the 1820s the Dickens family arrive to start a new life in London . Charles (‘Charley’) is just eleven and looking to continue his education. However, instead of being sent to school – and as his family fall deeply into debt – he is put to work in a boot-blacking factory at Hungerford Stairs.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWith his father soon cast into the Marshalsea debtors prison, Charley’s eagerness to earn an extra shilling sees him drawn into a criminal network led by the dark figure of Mr Magnus. The combination of demeaning factory work with this new and dangerous criminal activity places a huge burden on Charley, at a time when his mother and siblings are increasingly dependent on him.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLife becomes even more complicated when Charley is approached by the mysterious Mr Hesketh. How can the future novelist balance the demands of family, paid work and the London underworld amidst a situation that moves swiftly from casual abuse to violence, and ultimately the hangman’s noose?\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56307099009397,"sku":"9781805140108","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781805140108_92bbd855-44eb-40db-9787-2a6b2eb6bda0.jpg?v=1786027889"},{"product_id":"obadiah-grange","title":"Obadiah Grange","description":"\u003cp\u003eTwelve months have passed since the events surrounding the mystery of \u003cem\u003eHungerford Stairs\u003c\/em\u003e. The young Charles Dickens (‘Charley’) has gone back to school – but a new adventure is about to unfold.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhen 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhen 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: \u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eObadiah Grange\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCan 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?\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57487918760309,"sku":"9781806341481","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781806341481.jpg?v=1786355140"},{"product_id":"mr-hogarth-s-marriage","title":"Mr Hogarth’s Marriage","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhen, in July 1745, John Nugent, 3rd Earl of Homerton, is found brutally slain in a Covent Garden bagnio, rumours abound as to how he was killed – and by whom. It is not long before commentators note how the death bears a striking resemblance to the murder of the Earl of Squander portrayed in William Hogarth’s latest series of engravings – ‘\u003cem\u003eMarriage A-la-Mode\u003c\/em\u003e’. Could the real-life murder of the Earl of Homerton be linked to the artist’s phenomenally successful images?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhen several anonymous newspaper notices make the connection explicit through references to ‘\u003cem\u003eMurder A-la-Mode\u003c\/em\u003e’, William’s wife, Jane, and her close friend, Prudence, decide that – in the absence of any formal investigation – they must solve the mystery themselves. By tracing various links back through the ‘\u003cem\u003eMarriage\u003c\/em\u003e’ images, they identify an unlikely suspect, and discover a fiendish plot aimed at fermenting tensions between several of the late earl’s enemies – tensions that rise to a violent crescendo at the climax of a royal gala in Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNine years may have passed since the strange events that first brought the two women together in \u003cem\u003eMr Hogarth’s Morning\u003c\/em\u003e, but Jane and Prudence have lost nothing of their shared commitment to uncovering the truth.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57613213794677,"sku":"9781808330414","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-thom-braun.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}