These "Astorians" comprise not only "fairly conventional male Jewish shopkeepers" with dreams of a racier existence, but some gay and black confederates. A series of escapades, charmingly told if loosely connected, depict Benny and his mates—among them "Maxie the Ganoff" or "thief", "Spanish Joe" and "Fancy Goods Harry"—as they sidestep the law to recapture the "rule-breaking" thrills of their slumland youth. "Benny the Fixer" and his chutzpadik gang nurture Robin Hood fantasies as they raid a crooked jewellers or cheer on the career of "Kid Joey", a half-Jamaican, half-Irish Brixton boxer. They believe a "moral framework" blesses their scams. Not so "Little Jack" Lewis—a big cheese among "South London's more felonious residents", weapons-grade thug and sinister proof that playing at crime may lead swiftly down into darkness.

Colourful and episodic, "Pomeranski" scatters its stories liberally. A detour to Kingston, Jamaica, gives readers a tantalising glimpse, but no more, of the island's long-settled Jewish community. It might have benefited from a tighter focus on fewer figures, such as near-tragic Sam "the Stick" Golub, crippled in childhood and driven by a "constant quest for revenge". Ultimately, the book endorses Bertha's scorn for the "nonsense" of treating "petty thieving and threatening people as a sort of political stance". Mr Jacobs, though, keeps the mood genial and the yarns flowing. The wheezes of his Astorians add an exuberant shot of yiddishkeit to "the everlasting drama that was Brixton".

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