Title: The Thuggery Affair

Author: Antonia Forest

Publisher: Girls Gone By

Date: 2005

Pages: 256

Format: Paperback

Series: The Marlows series

Description

Miss Maud Culver staffed her pigeonry with boys who had been in trouble and were now supposed to be going straight – thus combining good works and cheap labour.  Though the neighbours looked disapprovingly at the boys and the young Marlows called them The Thuggery, there was nothing definite against them until Patrick Merrick and Peter Marlow found on the downs a dead pigeon which was carrying powder in a sealed capsule.  Then the reaction of The Thuggery left them in no doubt that they had stumbled on a case of drug-smuggling.

Antonia Forest has a remarkable gift for combining a gripping plot with psychological insight.  The Thuggery Affair is a tensely exciting story whuch also tells us a great deal about the odd way in which people behave under stress; so that Lawrie Marlow can see herself as a glam with-it chick, and Patrick Merrick can find himself involved in a strange, uneasy but still genuine comradeship with Jukie, the Thuggery leader.

The book also includes a short biography of Antonia Forest, who died in 2003.