Customer Reviews

Montmorency: Thief, Liar, Gentleman (Turtleback School & Library Binding Edition)

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I reluctantly picked up this book from the library, as its weird plot made me unsure of whether Ms. Updale could pull it off. But, as my rating tells you, she did! The plot is this: A petty thief falls through a roof when running from the police. Lucky for him, a doctor who is in bad need of some nation-wide acclaim decided to attempt to 'fix' the thief's broken body, almost like sewing this man together again. Needless to say, it works. The thief is named 'Montmorency' and thrown into jail, with frequent visits to the doctor's for further repair. The doctor then shows him off at science conventions and things like that. Montmorency gets tired of being shown off like this, and wants to have a new lifestyle. He finds his answer in the newly made London sewer systems. These are what he uses to navigate his way around England, preforming brilliant burglaries of various shops. But Montmorency needs an accomplice, and he later decides on who the lucky man is to be - himself! He takes on a double identity- Montmorency, the wealthy gentleman, and Scarper, his dirty servant-all while preforming these thefts. Can he keep his secret and live two lives?

This is a captivating, wonderful book. Its plot is quirky without being too quirky. Montmorency is a brilliant, fun character. I simply couldn't put this book down; it held my attention and didn't let go. I strongly recommend this book to everyone. Go pick it up!

Montmorency is an exciting book that makes you want to keep reading.

When the book starts, Montmorency is running across rooftops and running away from the terror that he has feared for so long; he is afraid that he will now know what it is like in there. One year later waiting in prison, barely able to move, Montmorency meets a new cellmate. His name is Freakshow. Montmorency learns a lot from his newfound friend; most will be quite useful. A few days later Montmorency is free from prison and uses the tools that he learned from Freakshow in thievery.

Montmorency loves thievery and the excitement behind stealing other people's belongings. But Montmorency wants to change his life to avoid going to prison again. Because he wants to change his life so that he doesn't get caught, but still loves to steal, he finds knew ways to avoid being seen when stealing. Montmorency is again drawn to stealing because of the hidden passages, the sewer system under the city, that he has found and the excitement stays with him.

Even though Montmorency used the hidden passage as a way to not be seen, he had trouble in them as well. Montmorency had to watch his back when thieving because there could have been other people around, but he also needed to be careful during storms. Along the way of stealing, Montmorency gets to know people that could help him get away from the thievery way of life. Now it's up to you to see where Montmorency's life will lead him.

My opinion of this book is that it is a great book for people who like mystery and suspense when reading. I loved this book because of that exact reason. I liked how the author created the characters and brought them to life. Another reason why I liked this book was because that as I read the characters and situations came to life, and I felt as if I was there.

I recommend this book for people starting from the fourth grade and above. Because people younger than fourth grade may not understand what it says and may not be able to read it. There are some parts that may be confusing even for those in the fourth grade. Read this exciting book; if you don't you will be missing a chance of a lifetime.

Montmorency is a thrilling novel filled with twists and turns about a very versatile criminal. Montmorency is set in the Victorian age in London, England, and was written by Eleanor Updale. Montmorency is the name given to this elusive criminal by the police after he fell through a skylight of a factory and was mashed up by a machine while trying to evade the police. During his time in prison, he became a new experimental toy for an up and coming doctor named Dr. Farcett. Farcett takes care of Montmorency and his work led Montmorency to a full recovery. While in prison Montmorency develops a new plan for his life as a thief, and devises new and exciting ways to get in and out of places leaving Scotland Yard scratching its head in dismay. I recommend this book for anyone above the age of 13, and I hope that you will enjoy this thrilling novel.

Scotty

Eleanor Updale's first book is an amazing piece of literature. The book is intruiging, thought provoking, and throughly entertaining in an odd, Gothic sort of sense.

The novel tells of Montmorency, who had once been an accomplished theif (one of the best in London) in 1875. Yet now, he was in prison, his body covered in horrible scars from his near-death expirence during a theft that got him thrown in jail. Entitled Prisoner 493, the man is taken out many times from jail to be used as a possesion, a project, by an unassuming doctor, who took M's mutilated body and "brought him back to life." Prisoner 493 is GIVEN the name Montmorency, as that was the name inscribed on the bag of tools the man was stealing on his "last" job. Through these scientific assembilies, Montmorency has learned this share of ideas from many presenters at these get-togethers. His favorite piece of information: the image of the near, underground sewer system in London, ingrained into his memory.

When Montmorency is released from jail, he has already planned a scheme: he will use the new sewer system to sneak around London, striking quickly and seemingly disappearing. But, Montmorency strives to live a gentle, sophisticated life.

The man comes up with a brilliant plan: He will live a double life, one of theivery, one of spledor.

By day: Montmorency, a rich, society man that parades around London in his alluring clothes, attends operas, and resident at the upscale hotel, the Marimion.

By night: Scarper, a theiving man who lurks in the sewers and take living at the gruby hotel, Convent Garden.

Yet, soon enough, Montmorency finds just how hard it is to live a double life...

Updale really knows how to keep a story rolling, and she does so beautifully. Her characters are full, three-dimensional people who you care for and wait with bated breath as you wait the outcome of event they become involved in. Montmorency would seem like a cold, desperate criminal, but he comes off as something totally different. The man is caring, compasionate, funny, and concerned. With a wonderfully done narrative, the book is a little Victorian-themed gem that I advise you read RIGHT AWAY! Don't miss this piece of great, mordern yound adult fiction

ALSO: Updale has recently released a sequel to Montmorency: Theif, Liar, Gentleman? (the ending of this book will leave you concernced with a yearning heart...and leave the mind wanting more). While I have not read it yet, I cannot wait for the return of one of my favorite new anti-heroes.

I bought this book a little less than 24 hours ago and read it in just over two hours. (I read quickly and it was a very engaging read!)

I won't rehash the plot, seeing as other reviewers have done so nicely, but I will remark upon the characterization. Throughout the book, Montmorency (if not Scarpers) goes through a gradual shift in personality. He matures, if you will, into the type of man that people of any era should aspire to (cultured, polite, intelligent, generous; etc). I could not predict where this growth would lead him (I actually feared for how the book would end - expecting a sad ending), and was pleased with the resolution of the book.

I'm not entirely sure why it was in the children's section, rather than the young adult section of my bookstore, but I doubt parents could take offense to anything in the book (other than the main character being a thief, and if they catch on to what some of the ladies in his aquaintance do for a living).

Could not be more highly recommended to anyone looking to read about Victorian London, thieves, or the moral growth of an individual. I can't wait to read the sequel!

Meet Montmorency. A criminal serving time for a burglary that almost killed him, Montmorency is hated among the other prisoners because of frequent trips out of the prison. Robert Farcett, the young doctor that saved Montmorency after his near-fatal burglary, regularly takes him to lecture halls around Victorian London to show off his medical expertise. It is at one of these lectures that Montmorency hears about the new sewage system and an idea forms in his head. Before long, Montmorency is conjuring up a plan to use the underground network to help him with his burglaries, but he needs a partner...or does he? This novel had great style and characterization. The story was gripping as well. I heard Montmorency is coming back in a sequel. I can't wait.

What more can one possibly say about British wunderkind Stephen Fry? He's actor, director, novelist, journalist, comedian, raconteur, philanthropist, and he wears all of these hats with apparent ease. His credits for radio, television, and stage would fill a large volume. Most recently he adapted and directed Evelyn Waugh's novel Vile Bodies for film under the title of Bright Young Things.

Having had the pleasure of watching him as Jeeves in the 1990s BBC series Jeeves and Wooster, I was delighted to see his name on this audiobook. My delight was doubled as his inimitable voice related an imaginative, original adventure, a first novel from British TV producer Eleanor Updale.

Set in London during the Victorian era we meet an inept thief who has run out of luck - he tumbles through a glass roof in an aborted effort to escape the police. However, that's not the end of him - far from it. A skilled doctor puts his poor body back together, and then he is released from prison.

Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks? No more roofs for this fellow - he takes to London's underground sewer system, and using this labyrinth becomes the city's most mysterious burglar. Eventually, he masquerades as not one man but two - a rich, respected upper class gentleman, Montmorency, and his rapscallion servant, Scarper.

What a balancing act, and therein lies the tale.

- Gail Cooke

What an exceedingly odd book.

As I was reading it, in the back of my mind I kept trying to think of a way to explain to people later what I'd just read ("It's like if Jean Valjean made himself respectable without actually becoming all pious and moral and there's no Javert-type character. ...well no, it's more like if Percy Blakeney used his Scarlet Pimpernel guise for cat burglary instead of rescuing French aristocrats and wasn't so dashing, and there's no Chauvelin-type character. Wait, actually it's more if Horatio Alger were writing about James Bond's great-granddad and...") And it was so hard to pin down because for all the stuff that happens in this novel, there's not a lot of plot or characterization here. Things just kind of happen in the book. There isn't any major antagonist. I mean, yeah, there's the developments in the last fifty pages or so, but to me they felt sudden and tacked on. For most of the story, Montmorency keeps moving up in the world through the actions of other characters or sheer dumb luck as much as by his own efforts. And even when there are hints that Montmorency has developed a conscience, I think it could as easily be argued that he's just picked up Victorian upper class sensibilities. Even at the very end, he's still amoral enough that the way he tries to make rights with some of the people he robbed earlier seemed to come out of nowhere.

My other main gripe with it is that there's no urgency in this story. The sewage never really hits the fan here. Whenever anything very, very bad has the potential to happen to Montmorency, it just... doesn't quite. He thinks up a plan so that it never becomes a problem, or he successfully Clark Kents his way through, or people decide for no real reason not to pursue the matter. Everything is incredibly convenient for him. Everyone he meets likes him except for the characters we aren't supposed to like. There are a few points where it seems like the author was deliberately trying to avoid confrontations between Montmorency and people who used to know him, because she'll run right up to the line and then swerve away at the last moment. Once or twice I could forgive, but it got really irritating as I kept reading, and it just kept happening again and again.

My niggling secondary complaint is about the women in this book. Of three of them, two are implied to be prostitutes and one is comically ugly and obnoxious (so it's like if Frank Miller... never mind). We never get any description of Montmorency or Scarper beyond a paragraph or so about how different he looks in Montmorency's clothing from what he'd been wearing before--which I think actually works in the book's favor; without being told what either of them looked like, I found myself picturing them as different enough that most people wouldn't immediately spot them as the same person. But the hotel owner's daughter, every time she turns up we get descriptions of how ugly and dirty she is and how bad her hair is and how obnoxiously she fawns on Montmorency. I found those scenes incredibly annoying, and it wasn't in the way I think I was meant to be annoyed by this character.

But for all that, I did actually like the book. I picked it up off the stack of books I was checking in at the library where I work, read the first page and a half, and said, "this book is coming home with me." For all the nothing much happening, it's suspenseful and well-written. I read the book in one sitting and at points muttered the sort of things that are probably equivalent to shouting "no, don't open that door!" at a character in a movie. The sensory detail is fantastic; one of the things I liked best about the story was how real Victorian London seemed. And the story definitely seems to be going somewhere by the end of the book, so maybe this was just a slow start. I'm certainly willing to give the second one a chance and see what happens.

A common criminal falls through a skylight, and no one has a doubt that he will die. No one except Dr. Farcett, that is. Repairing the thief's broken and bloody body, the young surgeon restores him to almost full health. Montmorency, as the crook becomes know as, is exhibited as a miracle of medicine at the Scientific Society while serving his prison term. When at the meetings, Montmorency hears of London's new sewer systems, and a brilliant plan begins to form in his mind. However, for his scheme to work, Montmorency must live two lives: A life of luxury, and a life of lies.

By Eleanor Updale, "Montmorency: Thief, Liar, Gentleman?" is an excellent novel. The story begins as, in prison; Montmorency plans his get-rich-quick plot. Using the sewers, he will pull off theft after theft, and disappear down the manholes before the police arrive. Soon after he is released, Montmorency becomes one of the upper class residing at the Marimion Hotel, giving the name Scarper to his alter ego who commits the crimes. As Montmorency settles into the high life, his friend proposes a job to him which could prevent England from plunging into another war, and make Montmorency two thousand pounds richer. After completing the task, Montmorency is offered a job as a spy, and leaves his criminal career behind him. "Montmorency: Thief, Liar, Gentleman?" is a magnificent book, with a level of "Young Adult" but a good read for anyone.

One aspect of the novel that I appreciated is its twisting plot. In the beginning, Scarper lives the life of a nomad, searching for tools necessary to attempt his daring scheme. Later, Montmorency, who has just entered his new, rich life, carefully tests the skills he has acquired, always worrying that someone may uncover him. Finally, an unexpected job offer surprisingly sends Montmorency away from his life of crime forever, or at least until the sequel.

Another feature of the book that I enjoyed is Montmorency's criminal ingenuity. First of all, simply thinking up his plan was a stroke of genius, and took someone incredibly clever and resourceful to execute it correctly. Soon, Scarper would become a master of the sewers, knowing every passage, pipe, and manhole. And most importantly, Montmorency used a variety of tactics and techniques to insure that no one ever had anything more than a suspicion about the true life that he led.

One more part of the novel that I found interesting was the adaptations Montmorency had to make to enter the upper class society. For example, while he was still in prison, Montmorency was taught by his cellmate, Frank Halliday, to mimic others' expressions, gestures, and movements, which eventually helped him copy the people of higher society. Once at the Marimion Hotel, Montmorency carefully plans his time in his room and leaving and entering the hotel so as he and Scarper are never in the same place at the same time. Finally, when Montmorency is caught with a question or situation that even he hasn't thought about, he is always quick on his feet, sparing himself from looking ignorant, suspicious, or embarrassed.

Probably my favorite part of the book is its suspense and close calls. As his whole new life emerged from lies and tricks, Montmorency is sometimes very close to being discovered. Once, Montmorency's hatter, Mr. Rigby, discovered that Montmorency was wearing another rich man's hat, which Montmorency had in fact stolen earlier. However, by writing a few notes and talking to a few people, he was able to neutralize the threat of anyone suspecting him. Later, Montmorency, going out as Scarper, ventured into the sewers without taking notice of the growing thunderclouds in the sky. The resulting storm flooded the sewers and nearly cost Montmorency his life, not just his reputation. "Montmorency: Thief, Liar, Gentleman?" is an exceptional story, a clever mystery filled with thrills, action and suspense.

Wade H.

*3 stars* (I can't edit the review to change my rating...made a mistake...)

While I enjoyed this book, this quote from Booklist seemed a bit off: "Readers will find themselves drawn not only to Montmorency's compellingly bizarre biography, but also to his clever and mischievous nature that eventually leads him to both a realization of his past wrongs and a valid career where he can put his "best" skills to good use".

Certainly, Montmorency has a rather bizarre biography, and has a mischievous nature, (and made for rather compelling reading) but how do those things lead him "to both a realization of his past wrongs and a valid career where he can put his `best' skills to good use"?

As he became one of the "gentry", albeit the funds that allowed him to parade about as such and eventually be allowed to walk amongst the nobility, and the more Montmorency became Montmorency, he saw the wrongs of his past. Watching his friend hang was very much a defining moment for his transformation.

The writing here is top notch. However, there were a few elements missing that would have made for a more interesting story. More characters. We saw was Montmorency interacting with a variety of different people from time to time, but we spent far too much time in his head. To me, that's "telling", not "showing". We could have seen his subtle changes if the author had given us elements of his behavior to analyze.

I'm being critical, I know, but part of it is because with the brilliance of the idea itself - the subtle changes that led someone who chose to live a dual existence to lead one, the exploration of London's underground, initiations into the gentry and the lower nobility - all of this should have made for a page turner. Instead, I found myself disappointed at what the book was, as opposed to what it could be, and while I certainly wasn't crawling toward the finish line panting for breath like I was while reading Eragon or Eldest (painful experiences, both), I wasn't racing for it either.

I might read the second book of the series, if only to see if the book develops into what I think it should be - less of Montmorency's thoughts, and observations as seen through his own eyes, and more of his actions that tell us his character. Flaubert said, "dramatize, dramatize, dramatize". That's what the book needed, and what the following need.