Bleak Expectations' recounts the remarkable adventures of young Pip Bin as he tries to repair his destroyed family and distinctly damaged life, aided by his best friend Harry Biscuit and definitely not aided by his cruel and ironically named guardian Mr Gently Benevolent and his accomplices, the fearsome Hardthrasher siblings. Grim circumstances, mistaken identities, unlikely inheritances, nightmarish court cases, ridiculous names, convenient coincidences to resolve plot problems, over-sentimental death scenes and lots and lots of adjectives: 'Bleak Expectations' is the novel Charles Dickens might have written after drinking far too much gin.