February's Book of the Month--The Outlaws Scarlett & Browne

THE OUTLAWS SCARLETT & BROWNE: Being an Account of their Daring Exploits and Audacious Crimes, by Jonathan Stroud, is a fine romp of a novel. It features strong-minded, red-headed female protagonist Scarlett McCain, unapologetic bank robber and murderer, and her reluctantly-acquired sidekick, Albert Browne, “a helpless-looking boy,” who has tremendous, hidden, “wicked” powers, and is genially-but-determinedly evasive about the horrific past he’s bent on escaping.

This pair find themselves on the run, alternately vexing and supporting each other with finely-tuned comic banter. When they take up with the old river rafter Joe and his granddaughter Ettie, who agree to take the fugitives to the Free Isles, the pithy fun ramps up along with the danger.

Set in a future dystopian Britain that’s home to outsized wolves and other wild animals, the Tainted, and the rest of the “chaos that ruled beyond the walls of the Surviving Towns,” this new series by the author of the Lockwood & Co. series and the Bartimaeus books should appeal to fans of Six of Crows and, well, Lockwood & Co.

--Lynn