A story of a bygone era in this rather dense read that I struggled to wade through.
Archie and Horatio are young men who haven't quite come to terms with their adulthood and who therefore still behave like the children they once were: getting up to mischief, which eventually lands them (inevitably, really) in hot water.
I liked the historical aspect of the book, for example, the telling about how the 'Peelers' (to become the English Bobbies') came about at the start of the development of the police force was extremely interesting.
However, I felt like I was wading through language a lot of the time in order to find the story. Once I found it, it was good, but it was hard work getting there.

A fictional recollection of events as witnessed by barrister Adolphus Winterbourne, and as experienced by his nephew Arthur Marshall and his friend Horatio Carlton in 19th Century London.

The tale, said to have been based on events as reported in The Times in 1830 (reference the Maria Wallace hoax), is narrated by Winterbourne who defended both Arthur & Horatio, when a series of misfortunes befall the two naive young men.

Once the hoax has occurred, the story starts to pick up and you are drawn into 19th Century London, its seedy underworld where theft was rampant, its class system defined by an influx of immigrants, and the development of the fledgling police force under Robert Peel.

Of the real crime itself, I could find little - which is a shame as this would have been most interesting to read.