City of Orphans by Avi

imageI am always amazed by the variety of voices and genres that Avi writes in.  City of Orphans gives yet a new voice in Avi’s historical fiction works.  The streets of New York City are a rough place to be as a kid in 1893.  Even though many things have changed since then, I couldn’t help but think of city streets today as I read.

Our hero, Maks Geless, sells papers for the The World, but he he hounded by Bruno and the rest of the Plug Ugly Gang.  While running from Bruno and the gang, Maks is rescued by Willa, a street kid with an uptown accent.  He brings her home where they learn that Maks’s older sister has been arrested and sent to the city jail known as the Tombs.  She’s accused of stealing an expensive watch from a patron of the Waldorf Hotel where she works.  Maks has four days to prove her innocence with no one to help but an eccentric lawyer, Bartleby Donck, who guides them in the art of detection.  Meanwhile, Willa tags along and searches for answers of her own.

Believe it or not, all these different characters and storylines are connected by threads they cannot see, and neither does the reader until close to the end.  The narrator brings the city streets to life–filled with crowds and dirt and danger.  For the most part I enjoyed the voice of the narrator, who gives the story the feel of an old detective show (the really old shows like Dragnet), but sometimes the strong voice interrupted the flow of the story when  giving too much commentary on the action.

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