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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780060534226
ISBN number: 0060534222
Label: Harper Perennial
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 416
Printing Date: November 01, 2004
Publishing house: Harper Perennial
Release Date: October 26, 2004
Sale Popularity Level: 48597
Studio: Harper Perennial
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Product Description:
It's the Christmas season, and Mr. Timothy Cratchit, not the pious child the world thought he was, has just buried his father. He's also struggling to bury his past as a cripple and shed his financial ties to his benevolent 'Uncle' Ebenezer by losing himself in the thick of London's underbelly. He boards at a brothel in exchange for teaching the mistress how to read and spends his nights dredging the Thames for dead bodies and the treasures in their pockets.
Timothy's life takes a sharp turn when he discovers the bodies of two dead girls, each seared with the same cruel brand on the upper arm. The sight of their horror-struck faces compels Timothy to become the protector of another young girl, Philomela, from the fate the others suffered at the hands of a dangerous and powerful man.
A different kind of Christmas story, this breathless flight through the teeming markets, shadowy passageways, and rolling brown fog of 1860s London would do Dickens proud for its surprising twists and turns, and its extraordinary heart.
Amazon.com Review:
Tiny Tim is back! No, not the squeaky-voiced troubadour who tip-toed through tulips in the 1960s, but the original--Timothy Cratchit, the crutch-wielding tyke from Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol. Only now he's a 'mostly able-bodied' 23 years old, resides in a London whorehouse in exchange for tutoring the madam, struggles to wean himself from financial dependence on his ancient 'Uncle' Ebenezer Scrooge, and, as we learn in Louis Bayard's darkly enchanting historical thriller, Mr. Timothy, is haunted by the spirit of his late father--a man whose optimism and strength the son feels himself incapable of imitating.
When we very first encounter Timothy, during the Christmas season of 1860, he's vexed by the discovery of two dead 10-year-old girls, each branded with the letter 'G'--one found in an alley, the other fished from the Thames River by Cratchit and a voluble old salt who makes his money by finding (and then robbing, of course) errant corpses. Timothy's concern leads him to protect a third possessively marked waif, the frightened and suspicious Philomela--who, he soon realizes, is being sought by a knife-loving former Scotland Yard inspector and a moneyed, malevolent voluptuary. When, despite precautions, Philomela is kidnapped by her pursuers, Cratchit--assisted by a shrewd warbling urchin known as Colin the Melodious--resolves to fulfill his 'great calling' in life by mounting a rescue. However, this mission will force the habitually uncourageous Timothy to not only defend himself against sexual molestation charges, storm a well-guarded mansion, and solve the puzzle of a coffin-filled basement, but also engage in a nightmarish final chase along London's docklands.
Authors employing real-life characters as detectives are often hampered by their adherence to historical fact. Bayard suffers no such limitations in imagining what fates awaited Dickens's now-famous fictional figures. Under his pen, Scrooge--whose rooms are decorated for Christmas year-round--becomes an eccentric collector of fungi and host to an interminable stream of charity solicitors, while Timothy Cratchit strikes out beyond his lonely young man status to become the head of an unconventional clan. Bayard's appreciation for the lurid exoticness of Victorian London rivals that of John MacLachlan Gray (The Fiend in Human), while his lyrical prose subtly suggests 19th-century influences. Mr. Timothy is at once a compelling Christmas crime yarn and an audacious literary endeavor. No humbug there. --J. Kingston Pierce
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Rated by buyers 
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First a warning: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS!!! I found the book to be a bit too clever in the writing, but still interesting and it certainly kept me captive. Until page 263, when I almost couldn't continue (and only did so that I could write a fair review). This is the point where it becomes evident that a very sick sexual abuse ring is being perpetrated by men in high places. That this is what the author chose for the path of this book is absolutely disgusting. If you read these scenes on line, you could be arrested for viewing child porn (a grown man licking a little girl's feet?!?!). Horrible, and the fact that no review mentions it is evidence that reviewers don't actually finish the books they write of.
Rated by buyers 
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I enjoyed the premise of this novel, quite clever. It's amazing he pulled it off. It was a thriller that took several unexpected turns. This might be the very first book where I marveled at the author's use of words. It makes me definitely want to read more of his works.
Rated by buyers -
Mr. Timothy: A Novel was disappointing in its lack of cleverness.
I always look for tidbits of humour but found nothing much in this "angry" immage of Tim as an adult.
Rated by buyers -
The concept is so forehead-slappingly simple I was a bit skeptical going into this book: Tiny Tim (" . . . who did NOT die", and I hear Gonzo from the The Muppet Christmas Carol - Kermit's 50th Anniversary Edition, for my money still the best adaptation) grows up! Doh, sure, that's too easy (hmm, why didn't I write that book first?), so I mentally subtracted a star from my rating of Mr. Timothy before turning the very first page..
But the execution turned out to be more complex, both better and far different than what I expected based on the title and the concept. Dickens' London is there in all its now-familiar fog, filth, poverty, sprawl, and risk. Scrooge is still Scrooge, the new and improved model, of course, celebrating Christmas year-round and assisting charities at a penitential pace.
But Timothy (he addresses the "Tiny" part in the very first sentence, and for the rest of the book that is off the table) is now a young man in his early 20's, his mother and father have both died, and his brothers and sisters are grown and on their own. Bayard does a masterful job of integrating the harsh actuarial and demographic statistics of mid-19th Century London into the very human story of the Cratchit family. The elder generation dies, young to us, of the physical ailments attendant to that time, place, and income level. Medical care is nonexistent or deadly, and even rising middle-class families suffer the consequences. The poor die young in the gutter; the middle-class have a bed and a roof for the event.
Even a wealthy benefactor like "Uncle N", as the Cratchit siblings refer to Scrooge, can only bring the Cratchit clan to that rising middle-class level where a roof is available, but economic or physical disaster is in the gutter just outside. So while one brother has a happy marriage and with his wife runs a photographic salon on a busy street, other brothers and sisters have faced hard times maintaining their hold on respectability (and pride--those gifts from Scrooge come at a price some can't or won't pay)--and and we meet Mr. Timothy boarding in a whore house as an English tutor to the madam.
Of course, Bayard also draws forward the pleasant associations from the original story. Timothy, despite all that has happened and will transpire throughout the book, remains trusting, innocent, and optimistic, even as his adult personality and difficult circumstances mold his way of thinking into a realism necessary for survival. The leg is healed, even though a limp remains. Bob Cratchit (met only through Tim's first-person thoughts and dreams, as he has already passed away before the book starts) remains the hopeful, hardworking, ever-cheerful clerk of the Dickens story.
Having set the stage with these common and anticipated props, Bayard takes the story in a direction I had not anticipated--Timothy encounters two young girls (about 10 years old, he thinks) dead in the streets, with a distinct and horrifying marking on their bodies; when he encounters a third with the same marking but very much alive, he dedicates himself to finding, saving, hiding, and finally rescuing her from the same fate. The events are at times truly horrific, but Bayard keeps this above the level of a standard period-piece London thriller by always keeping Timothy in character.
In the end, Bayard's story isn't about Scrooge, or Bob, or Christmas, or miracles, even though these things all play a part. The story is about Tim Cratchit growing up and gorwing older, and Bayard gets the feeling exactly right.
Nice job.
Rated by buyers 
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Mr. Timothy by Louis Bayard has a fascinating premise -- a character we all know and love, grown up and a different person, trying to solve a mystery. I was never a great fan of A Christmas Carol, but I do love mystery novels, and I decided the concept was interesting enough to read this book.
The mystery of the book is not lacking, nor is the action when it actually moves forward. Bayard, through Mr. Timothy's voice, gives excellent detail of what is happening and what Mr. Timothy is seeing and feeling. Mr. Timothy himself is a fascinating character; far more melancholy than one would expect considering how he was in his youth. The explanations for this are plausible and indeed were quite interesting at first. Mr. Timothy's interactions with the town and the people he meets are also interesting at first.
Unfortunately, the book does have flaws. Its major flaw is its flow. The book deals predominantly with Mr. Timothy's thoughts, with letters to his dead father inserted in-between the story. However, ultimately, the book takes far too long to go anywhere. Mr. Timothy spends much of his time wallowing in sorrow over what is occurring and making half-hearted attempts to solve the problems. Thus, by the time the plot picks up and the novel has the chance to get interesting, I was already bored and struggling to finish the novel. I did not care about if Mr. Timothy resolved his personal issues; I just wanted to finish the book and move on to something else.
Furthermore, while the characters start off promising, as the mystery continues, they slowly degenerate into stereotypes. Mr. Timothy constantly tries to have the two children who help him stay behind, even though they refuse every time and have proven to be valuable. This behavior seems odd anyway when Mr. Timothy never seemed to care much about the boy, and at one point showed no signs of growing to like him. Mr. Timothy then in the very end describes the mystery in the typical detective fashion, making me wonder when he became one. The boy himself, while starting off interesting, quickly appears to be another wild, brave Huckleberry Finn. The girl is tough and refuses to not be involved in the situation despite the danger to her life, which while not overly stereotypical, is not uncommon either. Other characters are similarly lacking in glitter, with the revealing of their motives somehow dull, though in the beginning the characters are interesting.
Finally, the characters are clearly invincible, particularly Mr. Timothy. They survive every harm or tragedy that befalls them, and while it is good luck the very first few times, it becomes redundant and unrealistic after a while.
These are the book's only flaws. The action, once it picks up, is quite interesting and relatively well-detailed; there were only a few moments when I couldn't figure out what exactly was going on. The mystery itself tied together well and generally seemed well thought out as a whole. The explanation of how Mr. Timothy came to be who he is, and the aftermath of his family and Scrooge after A Christmas Story, is also interesting when it doesn't just seem to interrupt the story. The portrayal of the Victorian era also seemed relatively accurate, though I do not have enough research in the subject to say.
Ultimately, the book wasn't bad, and it was an interesting read for roughly the very first half. However, the story dragged on for too long, destroying my interest and keeping me from enjoying it as much as I should. I would recommend the book for a look at what may happen after A Christmas Story, but there is still plenty to be desired.
Happy reading!
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