The Devil in the Marshalsea

Starred review from April 14, 2014
Hodgson, the editor-in-chief of Little, Brown U.K., conjures up scenes of Dickensian squalor and marries them to a crackerjack plot, in her impressive first novel, set in 1727. Tom Hawkins, the 25-year-old wastrel son of an English minister, has the misfortune to land in London’s hellish debtors’ prison, the Marshalsea Gaol. With his life and sanity at stake, Hawkins seizes a possibility for a reprieve. Shortly before his entry to the Marshalsea, the hanging death of another prisoner, Capt. John Roberts, was ruled a suicide. Roberts’s widow believes otherwise, and with reports of the captain’s ghost haunting the jail, the authorities hope that Hawkins will conduct an independent investigation that they can use to calm the inmates. Hodgson makes the stench, as well as the despair, almost palpable, besides expertly dropping fair clues. Fans of Iain Pears and Charles Palliser will hope for a sequel. Agent: Clare Conville, Conville & Walsh Literary Agency (U.K.).

April 15, 2014
In 1727, a murder occurs in the Marshalsea debtors prison in London, and a recently incarcerated prisoner is promised his freedom if he finds the killer. This isn't Dickens' Marshalsea from Little Dorrit but an earlier structure, even more loathsome and inhabited by a cast of repellent characters, a number of whom could qualify as the "devil" of the title. Tom Hawkins meets every one of them as he tries to figure out who killed Capt. Roberts a few months earlier. As the book opens, Hawkins is on top of the world, for he's won enough at gambling to pay off some of his creditors; but that same evening, he's set upon, robbed and taken to the Marshalsea. There, he meets a cross section of the English classes and finds a strictly capitalist system--he can have pretty much anything he wants as long as he's able to pay. Of course, the irony is he's imprisoned for debt and doesn't have a lot of spending money. He's immediately taken under the wing of Samuel Fleet, a suspected murderer and translator of French erotica; and he's soon antagonized the aptly named Joseph Cross and the egregious William Acton, two of the jailers. Acton is a vicious sadist who delights in beating a boy who tried to escape, much to the reader's revulsion. The plot develops almost as many intricate turns as there are passages in the Marshalsea as Hawkins crosses the paths of men and women, high and low, who might know something about the death of Capt. Roberts--and about Roberts' ghost, which now seems to be haunting the prison. Hodgson's plotting is clever, perhaps even overly intricate, and the local color hair-raising.

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April 15, 2014
The ne'er-do-well son of a country parson is thrown into the alternative world that is the debtors' prison of London in 1727. Owned by a noble, run by an unlikeable bastard, and inhabited by the unfortunate as well as the conniving, the Marshalsea Gaol is a festering pot of deception, treachery, and brutality. When a man of means is murdered inside the institution, everyone seems to have an interest in finding the killer, as well as a motive for the crime. New arrival Tom Hawkins not only needs to pay off his debts, he must find out who killed the man who slept in his bed two days before. The scenes are Hogarthian and the pace is Pattersonian. Debut author Hodgson, who is also the editor in chief of Little, Brown UK, has a gift for action and colorful characters, using the infamous prison as the main stage and real people as supporting actors. She manages to keep the reader guessing as to who might be the murderer and when (and whom) he might strike next. VERDICT History and mystery fans will both enjoy the roller-coaster twists and turns of this atmospheric historical thriller.--W. Keith McCoy, Somerset Cty. Lib. Syst., Bridgewater, NJ

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2014
As promised in the historical note that opens Hodgson's satisfyingly twisty debut thriller, readers will encounter an eye-opening look at Georgian London's debtors' prisons and some authentically colorful swearing within its pages. Tom Hawkins experiences both of these when he's thrown into the Marshalsea Gaol after too many gambling losses and a near-fatal mugging. To his surprise, the Marshalsea seems like a miniature town, complete with a tap room, coffeehouse, and barber. Indeed it reminded me of my old college, save for the iron spikes, he observes. But after meeting many disreputable characters and hearing screams coming from the gaol's Common Side, where those too broke to afford their upkeep are left to rot, he almost regrets not obeying his estranged father and becoming a clergyman. Complicating matters further are Samuel Fleet, Tom's fear-inducing roommate, and conspiracies surrounding a former prisoner whose ghost reportedly roamsand whose murder Tom must solve, or else. The squalid atmosphere is so well detailed that one can almost smell the corruption, and the irrepressibly roguish Tom makes a winning hero.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)