Book Review: Artful a Novel

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I received this as book as part of a Samsung for Kindle offer in February but finally got around to reading it. The book centers around one of the characters from Oliver Twist, the Artful Dodger.

In the first part of the book the author, Peter David kept criticizing Charles Dickens on the development of Oliver Twist and the focus of the story and how weak Oliver was. It was kind of irritating for the author criticized the very work that he was going to use for the book.  

Other than the criticism, the story development was well done; introducing the characters and linking the various characters together. Starting by showing Jack Dawkins by escaping (which explains why he has the nickname Artful Dodger) from his expulsion to Australia.

The vampire conspiracy and how it resulted in the two other main characters, the princess and also son of Van Helsing was well done and believable. Once the main story started, transition between the events and also sprinkle of some background stories kept me wanting more.

The story of how Fagin and Fang used to be closed friends and how both of them became vampires was fun to read. Especially when both of them became too confident of their ability until they came face to face with Dracula (though his name was never mentioned).

Finally, to have Fagin later be known as Jack, the Ripper was probably to make the ending more interesting.

Overall, this was an entertaining book.

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