The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti. The Dial Press, 327 pp. $25

"The Good Thief," Hannah Tinti's debut novel, is the perfect autumn read, with a New England setting, grave robbers, a mysterious dwarf, frightening horsemen decked out in distinctive hats, a murderer, and at the center of it all, a one-handed orphan whose circumstances have led him to steal, but who very much wants to be good.

Tinti previously published "Animal Crackers," an imaginative collection of short stories centered around animals, and she is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of One Story, an award-winning literary magazine that takes the unique approach of publishing a single story in each monthly issue. In "The Good Thief," Tinti's storytelling instincts prove sharp as she leads readers through a fast-paced, old-fashioned yarn.

When the book opens in 19th-century New England, Ren is a 12-year-old orphan living at gloomy St. Anthony's, a bare-bones establishment fittingly named after the patron saint of lost things. Ren is missing a hand -- "Somewhere between his entry into the world and his delivery through the door of Saint Anthony's, Ren had lost it."

Because of Ren's maimed limb, he's considered un-adoptable, and he pals around with a pair of twins, Brom and Ichy, believed to be unlucky, so the boys endure the deprivations of the orphanage together and are anxious about growing older, as un-adopted 18-year-olds are conscripted into the army. Ren develops a habit of stealing what he can, mostly bits of bread and small items, as well as his prized possession, the library's copy of "The Lives of the Saints."

Salvation comes for Ren in the form of a man named Benjamin Nab, who picks him out of the orphan lineup and tells the priest that he's his brother, separated from the family when marauding Indians killed their parents. Nab produces a pair of scalps which he says are the remains of their parents. Although Ren wants to cling to this story of his origins, almost as soon as they leave the orphanage he discovers Nab is a con man. Nab plans to use Ren's missing hand to play on people's sympathies, and brings him back to the squalid lodgings he shares with his drunken cohort, Tom.

After running a few scams, including selling "Mother Jones's Elixir for Misbehaving Children"-- which dopes dozens of kids on diluted opium -- the trio rents a room in a boarding house run by a woman who takes a liking to Ren, bathes him and dresses him in clean clothes left to her by the mother of a drowned boy.

Meanwhile, Benjamin and Tom's money-making schemes degenerate, and they start robbing graves and delivering the bodies to a doctor who uses them for dissection. One of the bodies they dig up turns out to still be alive.

This action is set against the odd ways of the village, whose economy is based on a mousetrap factory run by a frightening man, his henchmen patrolling the roads on horseback.

It turns out that Nab was right in his initial appraisal of Ren, when the director of the orphanage cautioned him that because of Ren's hand he could not be used for labor. "The boy has other qualities," Nab observed, and as "The Good Thief" unfurls, these qualities are revealed. Ren turns out to be wily, brave, and tenaciously loyal, even when he is imperiled because of it, and his quest for a family comes to fruition before the end.

Tinti's prose is compulsively readable, straightforward yet filled with rich, striking detail that transports the reader to the distinctive world she has created. The book is full of insights that ring true, such as when one character undergoes a transformation and Tinti writes, "When he was finished he looked like a different man. A man with worries. A father." Simple as it is, is there a better definition for a father than "a man with worries"? "The Good Thief" would be a wonderful book to linger over during crisp evenings during leaf-turning season, but most readers won't be able to resist tearing through it at a gallop.

Jenny Shank is the Books & Writers Editor of NewWest.Net/Books. She lives in Boulder.