This was one of the books my family read aloud when I was very young. It's hard to look at it critically, because it shaped my brain. (I also feel this way about Endurance, and the Winnie-the-Pooh books. The originals; pre-Disney.)

Anyway. Adventure, capers, plots, moral ambiguity, swashbuckling, prison breaks. This book has them all. (And now I kind of want the tv show version.)