Not all Tarts Are Apple

* * * * * (5 stars)
Pip Granger
Penguin books, 2002
Paperback
ISBN 0 14 20.0332 8

Set in 1953 working class London, the story is told from the point of view of Rosie, a seven-year-old girl living with her Uncle Bert and Aunt Maggie above a neighbourhood café. The scene is set in the first paragraph:

It seems that I have always been surrounded by the warmth of the kitchen, the smell of food cooking and the murmur of punters voices rising and falling above the hiss and bubble of the urn.

Rosie is loved and supported by an extended family of prostitutes, crooks, con-men, pimps, thieves and shady lawyers. The adventure starts when the school bully tells Rosie that her mother is a tart. Even though she doesn't know the meaning of tart, Rosie doesn't want anybody calling her mother one; furious she attacks the girl in the playground.

The incident bursts Rosie’s warm denial about her heritage and she starts asking questions. She learns that the Perfumed Lady, who would visit every now and then, is in fact her birth mother who abandoned her at the café when she was a baby. For the first time in her life Rosie feels unsafe and starts peeing the bed nightly. Tired of washing sheets, and concerned for Rosie, Uncle Bert and Aunt Maggie call the local solicitor to set in motion a legal adoption. But things don't go as smoothly as planned, a stranger starts asking the locals questions about the Perfumed Lady, unearthing more family secrets, threatening Rosie, the family and their way of life. The community rallies to find more answers and protect their own.

This is the first of a series of books set in this community. The Widow Ginger follows Alice and her family, whereas Trouble in Paradise and No Rest For the Wicked are loose prequels, filling in back stories for other characters. Granger grew up in the London underworld, her father was a smuggler, and her ability to create believable outcast characters obviously stems from that heritage. The dialogue is realistic and humorous; some Americans might need an English/ Cockney dictionary to get more than the gist. Her most recent book, Alone - Corgi (June 26, 2007), is a memoir of her growing up in very similar circumstances to the heroine of her first novel.

Not All Tarts Are Apple was nominated for an Agatha Award in the UK for best first novel. The plot is character driven and the writing, laugh out loud funny. It's the kind of writing you want to read aloud to people on the bus or to a frustrated girlfriend who is trying to fall asleep. This book is ideal for any anglophile mystery lover and anyone ready for a well written light read.

Reviewed by Boye