The story: Tom Hawkins, the son of a gentleman, is sent to debtors’ prison, Marshalsea, in 1700s London. While there, he learns about the murder of another prisoner, Captain Roberts–and that the main suspect is his cellmate, Samuel Fleet. Fleet is kind of a menacing weirdo, and Tom begins to worry that he might be next. He realizes he needs to solve the murder before he meets a similar fate to Captain Roberts.
Why I read it: A few months ago, I read The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson, and I loved it so much. I looked up Hodgson’s other books and saw she’d written this series of historical murder mysteries set in Georgian England. I like historical fiction, and I love mysteries, so I was excited to try this series.
What I thought about it: Well, it’s no The Raven Scholar. You can definitely tell that Hodgson has refined her writing style in the time between these two books. The story was a little confusing, and I had trouble keeping track of who was who. On the other hand, Hodgson is a very talented writer and clearly knows her stuff about this time period. I can’t think of too many places that sound worse than Marshalsea. I’d never heard of it before, but Charles Dickens also wrote about it (his father was imprisoned there when Dickens was a child). “Squalid” doesn’t even begin to cover it. The prison served mostly to enrich the owners and wardens, and prisoners who had no money were left to starve or die from disease. I don’t think I’ll continue with the series (I didn’t really find Tom to be that appealing of a character), but if you’re interested in this time period in England, you might like this book.
