Simon, the resourceful goose-boy who saves the girl in The WOlves of Willouhghby Chase, travels to London to learn the advancement of his natural taltent for art. But his friend and patron has mysteriously disappeared from the house of the Twites, a Cockney family whose only remotely applealing member is Dido, a gutter-snipe. Simon meets Sophie, an old friend from the orphanage who is now maid to the Duchess of Battersea - an eccentric woman who lost her twin babies. Wolves, Hanoverian, bombs and treachery make this piece of cod-historical fiction a glorious romping adventure. All the other books in this series worth checking out too.