The Booker Prize-winning author of Oscar and Lucinda returns to the nineteenth century in an utterly captivating mystery. The year is 1837 and a stranger is prowling London. He is Jack Maggs, an illegal returnee from the prison island of Australia. He has the demeanor of a savage and the skills of a hardened criminal, and he is risking his life on seeking vengeance and reconciliation. Installing himself within the household of the genteel grocer Percy Buckle, Maggs soon attracts the attention of a cross section of London society. Saucy Mercy Larkin wants him for a mate. The writer Tobias Oates wants to possess his soul through hypnosis. But Maggs is obsessed with a plan of his own. And as all the various schemes converge, Maggs rises into the centre, a dark looming figure, at once frightening, mysterious, and compelling.

Author Biography

Peter Carey is the multi-award-winning author of eight novels, plus two highly acclaimed collections of short stories and a memoir, WRONG ABOUT JAPAN. His books have won or been short-listed for every major literary award in Australia. He has won the Booker Prize twice - in 2001 for TRUE HISTORY OF THE KELLY GANG and in 1988 for OSCAR AND LUCINDA. In 1998 he won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for JACK MAGGS, and again in 2001 for TRUE HISTORY OF THE KELLY GANG. In 2007 he won the NSW Premier's Award and the Victorian Premier's Award for THEFT: A LOVE STORY. Born in Bacchus Marsh, Victoria, Peter Carey now lives in New York.