Crow Dark Dawn interweaves the stories of Morrow, Ghresselle, Fenya and Binnory: vulnerable, complex and cunning, surviving in a liminal city of wind-swept wharfs and winding alleyways, stagnant canals and cold dank cellars - drawing on folklore and myth to create a distinctive dream-like atmosphere.

Morrow: abandoned by Lummenmilk, his mother. He is brought up by Grob, the wizened old ratcatcher, who teaches Morrow his trade.

Ghresselle: an old woman losing touch with reality, who wanders the city in search of her dead husband and a brother she never had, but who she believes is drowned.

Fenya and Arrak: two street urchins, filching fruit and pickings from the market and the docks.

Binnory: a young woman who arrives from the country, but quickly becomes entangled with the pickpockets and tricksters she meets on the streets.

Longing and loneliness, hunger and disease live cheek by jowl with dancing and revelry, fiddle-playing and puppetry - and the haunting memory of a far-off village, lingering on in the mythic tale of a flower which bursts into flames, but never burns.

DAVID GREYGOOSE dw dot windowsproject AT btinternet dot com