There's something extremely impressive about Andrew Prentice and Jonathan Weil's debut novel, an Elizabethan tale set in London in 1592, based around the exploits of the young nipper (or cutpurse) Jack. This is not, however, London as it really was, but as it would have been had the magic rituals of the day actually achieved what their practitioners set out to do. Rather than simply weaving a magical construct of their own and imposing it on their 16th-century players, the authors have remained true to the central belief that magical power  good or evil  was achieved through summoning devils, and that containment of said beasts was central to the summoner's survival. Then they've made it their own.

Although Dr Dee puts in a brief appearance and the Virgin Queen has a walk-on (non-speaking) part, Black Arts is not of the school of "Good morning, Sir Walter," "Good morning, your Grace," historical fiction, and is all the better for it. It stands and falls on the strength of the characters, plotting and setting rather than a reliance on the pre-existing or the second-hand.

Remarkably few titled courtiers appear within its pages and, although the reader becomes immersed in the underworld of Sharkwell, his granddaughter, Beth, and Mr Smiles, we are not confined to the gritty underbelly of society.

On the very day that should be Jack's proudest  his acceptance as a junior member of Sharkwell's criminal enterprise, following his "testing"  his world changes for ever. Among some stolen items, he finds a pipe with a blocked-up stem which he tries to clear. "He wormed the wire deeper into the stem, peered inside  and suddenly the wire slipped and a puff of powder came flying out of the pipe, straight into his eye." The pain is excruciating and the eye transformed. Now he can see what remains unseen to most: the devils and old gods that haunt the city. Small wonder that he wears an eye-patch thereafter.

The same rust-coloured powder has tainted his hand, which flares up and itches in the presence of magic, and is also the mark of the puritanical followers of the crusading preacher, Nicholas Webb. Now Jack is cursed with unwanted weapons in his fight against evil, his battlefield a London which includes whorehouses and real danger.

I have, however, saved Prentice and Weil's finest skill till last. They can really write. They write action which is easy to follow, and totally convincing dialogue. I don't know if all the Elizabethan slang in Black Arts is genuine or not but, between you and me, I don't really care. What I do care about is that not only does this slang come across as totally convincing, it also comes across as colloquial: as if it's being spoken by people who always speak that way, rather than having words put in their mouths. This writing duo wear their research lightly in every way.

I've little doubt Jack will be back in further adventures, no doubt with chameleon-like Beth Sharkwell and Kit Morely the spy/intelligencer at his side, but I'm pleased to report that Black Arts is a complete, self-contained and wholly satisfying novel in its own right. This is a sparkling and intelligent debut.

 Philip Ardagh's The Grunt in Trouble is published by Nosy Crow.