Recurrent themes in Leon Garfield's novels include the "search" and the ambiguity of appearance and reality, good and evil. Often, these major themes are interwoven: an adolescent hero must seek the truth about a person or situation. In Jack Holborn, the title character confronts two brothers, and the identity and genuineness of each is open to question. In Devil-in-the-Fog, a young hero is again faced with confusion between two brothers.

Smith involves a young pickpocket's attempts to understand a document he has stolen. Both Black Jack and Footsteps involve a search for individual identity and for true, unchanging values in a changing world. The Apprentices, a series of short novels, explores the master-apprentice relationship, depicting young people finding a variety of guides in their quests to achieve adulthood.

In The Sound of Coaches, a young man searches for his father while contemplating the kind...