ESCAPING PYGMALION

A girl overcomes a harsh upbringing and vows to make something of herself in Burgess’ series prequel.

Five-year-old Roxy Reid and her mother, Isadora, live in poverty in London’s East End. Isadora earns money as a sex worker but mostly uses it to feed her drug habit. She’s an angry woman who vents her frustrations by physically abusing her daughter. Roxy finds most of Isadora’s regulars to be seedy types, but Nick Dredd shows both Isadora and Roxy nothing but kindness. Nick ultimately takes Roxy in, giving her a better place to live, teaching her how to fight, and making her a part of his growing drug-dealing business. When she’s a bit older, she becomes a courier—both as a legitimate bike messenger and as a drug transporter. As a result, she’s often surrounded by reprehensible people, including Nick’s local rivals and Russian criminals muscling their way into Nick’s territory. Roxy ably holds her own but looks for an above-board career; she finally scores a job as an administrative assistant at a major American bank’s London office. Enter James Hancock, an American who’s just transferred there as head of fixed income trading; Roxy quickly sees him as her “meal ticket” out of the life she’s stuck in. But initiating a sexual relationship with him only complicates things, as James is married and most also likely sleeping with Roxy’s boss—who’s married as well. The longer she stays in London, the greater her chances of running into unsavory types from her recent past, whether they’re assorted criminals or simply men who remain irate that Roxy rejected their advances with her fists.

Burgess, whose last series entry was Roxy Reid: Five Weeks in New York(2021), excels at developing this prequel’s multilayered cast. Roxy has a complicated relationship with her abusive mother who repeatedly acknowledges her faults but seems incapable of rectifying her behavior. Nick is a mentor and warmhearted parental figure, which makes for a stark contrast with his criminal behavior, and although James may be the “protector” Roxy yearns for, he generally comes across as a pushover. The story’s pacing is impeccable, smoothly moving through the years until young Roxy reaches adulthood. Although it sticks to Roxy’s perspective, her ever-changing life propels her to different homes, various ways of making money, and into a host of other characters’ lives. With so many lawbreakers, it won’t surprise readers that this book has several dark and violent turns; fortunately, Burgess doesn’t steep the story in gloominess and only implies much of the violence, especially during Roxy’s earliest years. The protagonist as an adult is tough and ultra-chic, riding a motorcycle, sporting a leather messenger bag, and carrying her trusty switchblade and brass knuckles wherever she goes. In one scene, after a scuffle (that she wins), the author effectively describes her as wearing “her leather-Lycra fingerless gloves, and there was blood on them, though it was beginning to dry….Her knuckles were raw, with red, black, and blue bruising.” The ending perfectly sets up the next chronological installment.

A sometimes bleak but wholly absorbing coming-of-age story.