'A vivid portrayal of working-class life. Two runaway boys overhear two criminals plotting a crime, one instantly recognisable from his foreign accent, assumed to be German, although really French. He is Jean Petit, a murderer, born and bred in crime. He murders Hans Halterman, a German wine-grower, and is finally captured by the authorities with the help of the boys' (
Oxford Companion to Australian Children's Literature 66).
