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1700s: Georgian London – in a debtor’s prison called the Marshalsea
The Devil in the Marshalsea
What you need to know before your trail
Tom Hawkins lives in a world where chance is all you need to survive – his love of card games, brothels and coffee-houses ensure that he lives life on the edge and its not until he ends up in the debtor’s prison, the Marshalsea, that he really starts to know what that means.
The Marshalsea is a savage world -ironically you need money to survive – those that have friends to help have a better chance than most. Those who own and run the prison are the only ones to really prosper.
Hawkins ends up sharing a cell with Samuel Fleet – known as the devil of the Marshalsea for his apparent involvement in the killing of Captain Roberts. when tom is tasked with getting to the truth of the murder, he has to risk his own life as he is told he will be the next to die if not.
Travel Guide
Set in a dark and dangerous London where you even have to be quick looking over your shoulder incase someone attacks you from the front, this is a disturbingly fascinating book since it is based on real life events and people.
The story and setting whips you back into the past and places the noose of expectation around your neck which continues to grab and taunt you throughout the story.
The Marshalsea of 1727 is not the same one from the Dickens novels – but is a place where all those in debt were locked up until their debt was paid. These poor souls then had to pay their way in prison – for the ‘privilege’ of being fed and ‘kept’. Misery was the currency in those days for sure.
The dark underbelly of Georgian London was rank and stale – even the prison was separated into a common side and the Master’s side. Bodies were thrown over the wall, the dead piled up in a hut until their families paid for their release…
Booktrailer Review
Susan: @thebooktrailer
From the very first line I was transported to the dangerous world of the Marshalsea – the fear, the element of surprise, the utter depravity of what went on there –
They came for him at midnight.There was no warning, no time to reach for the dagger hiding underneath his pillow.
And then they sent him to hell…….
And this is only the start of the sheer hell of the place that is depicted in this novel. You owe money – you have to sell your soul to survive. You owe someone something else – a favour or such like, and you also risk your life.
If you stumble into the wrong side of town, if you’re robbed and beaten then you should think your self lucky. What kind of life must that have been like?
We see this and a whole lot more through the eyes of the main character Tom Hawkins who given the way in which he ends up in the prison is in rough ride and takes us through the whole experience – his worries, fears, experience of double dealing and the things he sees that he wishes he hadn’t – all coming alive from the page.
The books many strengths are not just all about the setting however – the characters too are three dimensional, double sided and some have faces you can’t read. Very authentic for those in the Marshalsea – as with the setting, very raw, stark and horrifying in equal measure. No one is either all good or all bad either – this is not a a book about ‘the haves and have nots’ every one is a made up of several shades.
The ‘closed setting’ of the prison brought the isolation and fear the victims experienced to the fore – the darkness and the shadows hiding so much. And the ‘appearance’ of a ghost making it all the more frightening.
Perhaps what made it all the more real for me was the way in which it all seemed so ‘ normal’ – the prison had a coffee house, a bar etc ‘ on site’ and it almost seemed like a weird ghost like community. The language was course, the banter between characters sometimes resorting into violence – I just only wish that I could have turned up the sound on the novel so sure I could hear the voices coming from the page. They seemed so real!
It was a fascinating and horrifically good read brought to life by the impeccable research and deft of tone by the author. Her debut!!? Well, I believe her next book is set a few months after the events of the Marshalsea – and I for one will be there clamouring to get back in.
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