The Good Thief -- Hannah Tinti

Ren is an orphan with only his name and a missing hand to provide clues to his identity. At age 12, living in a grim orphanage in mid-19th century New England, he seems unlikely to be adopted. But one day Benjamin Nab shows up to claim that Ren is his brother. Nab spins a wild tale of how Ren lost his hand and takes him away.

Nab, we quickly learn is a liar and a thief. He sees in Ren a "gold mine" for a guy like himself and his partner, Tom, and they quickly find many uses for the boy without only one hand.

In the town of North Umbrage, with its towering mousetrap factory, Ren acquires a sort of surrogate family. Besides Nab and Tom there are a landlady who always shouts because of her deafness, a dwarf who lives on a rooftop, four mousetrap girls who work in the factory, and a humongous professional killer.

Things go bad when Nab, Ren, and Tom get into the resurrectionist business, and there are some gruesome and violent episodes. In about the last quarter of the book, Tinti begins to tie things together, and by the end all is resolved, though I wouldn't say happily.

Tinti owes debts to Dickens and Stevenson, but she has her own way with the grim and the grotesque. The Good Thief might not be for everybody, since Tinti goes overboard at times, but it's fine entertainment if you're in the right mood. Check it out.