The beginning of this book got me hooked, even though it’s not my usual genre of choice. The story starts with jack (also known through the book as jaq or jaquares ) the little dockrat a young child who has no home or family of his own, is saved from near death by sant a ships captain and taken to Yoshas house (the golden Jew) were he is looked after until recovered , it here he finds a home and is sent to school with there boy until jack loses his temper and slashes the school masters arm. After this jack kills a house invader and decides to leave. He then finds himself on a long journey from place to place working just for food and shelter at one point he is at an old horse farm and then goes with two men jo-jo and Peter to have he next town but along the way jack becomes quite ill so they end up leaving him at the inn belonging to Magda and poala, after a long illness and a little help from the Roma he is well again , and again moves on and it doesn’t end there either . There so much happening in the book that it hard to pick out the best bits