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For some reason, a lot of the crime fiction that has come my way for review recently has generated suspense out of manipulating the order in which events are revealed or by providing multiple narrators of greater or lesser dependability. Some of these novels have worked brilliantly, others not so much. All the same, it is with real pleasure that I could turn to Antonia Hodgson's follow-on to her recent THE DEVIL IN THE MARSHALSEA, which won last year's CWA Historical Dagger Award. In this, Thomas Hawkins, recently freed from the notorious debtors' prison, recounts the events that have led to his present precarious position on a cart that is headed toward Tyburn where he is to be hanged.
What has brought Hawkins to this? Only months have passed since he was released from prison. And he has pretty much landed on his feet. His marvellously spirited and sensible lover, Kitty Sparks, has inherited a somewhat dodgy bookshop and the pair has moved in to the premises, where Hawkins spends his days translating erotica from the Italian. His nights, however, are beginning to be another matter. He'd almost died in prison; on his release he'd vowed to reform and settle down. But that was months ago and he is restless. Inevitably he slides back into the ways that got him into the Marshalsea to begin with. Drink, gambling, out all hours. Kitty is tolerant, as she knows he is utterly committed to her and knows too that too tight rein will never work.
The bookshop is unfortunately situated next door to the residence of one Joseph Burden, a member of the Society for the Reformation of Manners, a group that takes a dim view of the sort of work that the bookshop specializes in. Conflict is inevitable and in time will get Tom arraigned for Burden's murder.
But before that happens, he also becomes involved in the affairs of the King's mistress, Henrietta Howard, and the king's wife, Queen Caroline.
Hawkins' complicated adventures lead him into the stews of St Giles, a no-go area presided over by James Fleet, head of the most dangerous gang of thieves in that "foulest smelling borough of London." Fleet is also the father of Sam, who has been placed with Hawkins in the hope that he will learn something about being a gentleman, though Tom thinks he'd have more luck shaving a wolf and wrestling it into a waistcoat. Tom himself is a gentleman, however raffish, and thus he can move successfully from his home in Russell Street to St Giles to St James's Palace and get in trouble in every single one of them.
While the bulk of this arresting narrative is devoted to the story of Tom's attempts to survive various attempts to bring him down or kill him, each section is preceded by an italicised passage describing Hawkin's final journey to Tyburn and the gallows. These passages are filled with wonderful detail (consider, for example, the obligatory stop at St Giles for a cup of good mulled wine) and once the reader has finished the novel, it might not be a bad idea just to go back and read them consecutively for a marvellous portrait of Georgian London.
As CJ Sansom has done for Tudor London, Antonia Hodgson has vividly resurrected the city in all its awfulness, animation, and danger in the early 18th century. Its protagonist knows he is on to a good thing with Kitty and the bookshop but is horrified by the temptations of respectability. Pressed for a confession as he stands with the rope around his neck, he can only oblige the crowd so far: "I have led a wicked life. Immersed in every vice … I have wasted many nights in taverns and brothels and cannot say I regret it...I confess all these things. But I swear on my soul I am not guilty of murder." Likewise, he clings to the shambles that is London like everyone else in the book, though its river and its gutter run with filth and rats infest its homes and streets.
THE DEVIL IN THE MARSHALSEA won the CWA Historical Dagger Award and several other honours. If anything, this one is even better and certainly should be in contention for whatever prizes are going, regardless of genre. I haven't enjoyed a book so thoroughly in quite a while.
§ Yvonne Klein is a writer, translator, and retired college English professor who lives in Montreal. She's been editing RTE since 2008.
Reviewed by Yvonne Klein, February 2016
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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