What a strange and fascinating story. I’m still not sure how much of this novel is based on fact. The structure is almost a parody of a historical text referencing primary sources such as court documents and newspaper accounts, but without footnotes or a bibliography, sort of like a faux-documentary with an invisible narrator. The style creates distance from the characters—we don’t get much in the way of interiority—but their language, relationships, and the heist itself come alive through clever details about life among the criminal classes in Victorian England. A fun read overall…and now I’m going to check out the movie.