The Devil in the Marshalsea by Antonia Hodgson, The Front Seat Passenger by Pascal Garnier, Darkness, Darkness by John Harvey, The Murder Bag by Tony Parsons, and two reissues – Duffy by Julian Barnes writing as Dan Kavanagh and Speedy Death by Gladys Mitchell
Antonia Hodgson's The Devil in the Marshalsea tells the story of Tom Hawkins and his bid for freedom. Courtesy of the British Library
There is always money to be made out of debt, and the eponymous setting of Antonia Hodgson's splendid debut, The Devil in the Marshalsea (Hodder & Stoughton, £17.99), is an example of one of the most appalling and insidious ways of going about it. In 1727, seven years after the bursting of the South Sea Bubble, 25-year-old Tom Hawkins, the ne'er-do-well son of a clergyman, finds himself imprisoned alongside hundreds of others. Conditions are relatively comfortable – just as long as Tom can find a way to keep paying the jailers who are intent on squeezing every last penny out of their captives. Once the money runs out, he will be consigned to the fetid and teeming "Common Side" until starvation or disease finishes him off. However, a man was murdered in the prison a few months before his arrival, and Tom is offered his freedom if he can unmask the killer. Impeccably researched and astonishingly atmospheric, with time past evoked so strongly that one can almost smell it, this is a truly spellbinding tale.
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