When a policeman catches Jem, Ned and Billy sleeping rough on the streets one night, things start to look very bleak. They are marched back to the slums, but when they arrive at Devil's Acre the site is mysteriously empty, and Gran's gypsy caravan is burnt to the ground . . .

With no home and no family to look after them, the boys wind up locked away in a workhouse run by the tyrannical Mr George Blood. But not even merciless Blood can dampen the Perkinski spirit . . . There's only one way to escape, but will the boys' stinky-sewers scheme work?

This second JAMMY DODGERS story ventures deep down into the dangerous labyrinths of Victorian London.