Plot Summary

Joe Thorne, an overgrown chimneysweep with thievish ambitions, has got himself in trouble. After his bothersome magical cough turns his hard-earned/stolen treasure to literal potatoes, he is unwillingly swept up into an adventure on the mystical Isle of Teems. Joe wades through a tide of curses, murder, and the disgusting countryside to unravel the mystery of the missing knights with an old friend, frog-man, and a sentient handkerchief by his side.

My Thoughts

From the start, The Gentleman Thief, by Kate Gragg, has a fun, surrealist vibe. It had me laughing within the first page and a half, and it didn’t let up. A lot of the humour comes from the author’s attention to detail, rather than relying on the weirdness of the situations to provide comedy by default.

The Gentleman Thief is witty, whimsical and amusing, but manages to maintain coherency and direction. For the most part at least. There are a few moments where it seems to lose its way towards the end. When the whimsy really piles up, the plot seems to strain a little under the weight of it. But it always retains its charm!

Gragg’s characters are entertaining, both the main characters and the incidental ones. I particularly enjoyed the various creatures and people Joe encounters on his travels through the magical forest. Some helpful, some hostile, all of them deeply strange; they would be plenty interesting by virtue of the variety of ways they’re introduced! But it’s the details that really bring them to life.

The relationship between Joe and Lydia was also good fun, and I appreciated that the author trusted us to read between the lines a little as some of their backstory was revealed. The fantasy genre is notorious for heavy-handed exposition, and The Gentleman Thief certainly avoids that trap. No info-dumping here!

The antagonist is hard-to-read in a way that makes him interesting, although the distinct lack of clues about his deal does have a downside. This is where the light touch with explanation and character background might have gone a bit far. I found it made it difficult to get that invested in what he might be up to. Not that it mattered too much—this is a book that is very much about the journey rather than the destination.

The Gentleman Thief is a short and highly entertaining read, well worth a look. I’d especially recommend it to fans of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. It’s available through Amazon (UK/US), if you want to check it out!