The Devil in the Marshalsea

In Hodgson’s debut novel, set in 1727 London, 25-year-old gentleman-rake Tom Hawkins is robbed of his last farthing and, shortly thereafter, tossed unceremoniously into the city’s nightmarish debtor’s prison, The Marshalsea Gaol. Once the gates slam shut, the author’s fluid style and fertile imagination (assisted by considerable existing diaries and other firsthand accounts) are in full force as she takes her antihero through a series of dire straits and hairbreadth escapes. Lee’s upper-class London accent fits Hawkins’s narration well, catching his air of roguish charm—the aural equivalent of a jaunty swagger. His interpretation of Sam Fleet, Hawkins’s off-putting cellmate, includes a moist, smarmy manner of speech, ripe with sinister innuendo. For the wellborn widow of Fleet’s former roommate, Captain Roberts, who visits the prison calling for an investigation into his death, Lee uses a fluty, properly posh delivery. And he’s equally successful in finding voices for the other inhabitants of Marshalsea, from the snarling, angry gatekeeper Cross to the aggressively cheery owner of the gaol’s coffeehouse, jolly Sarah Bradshaw. An HMH/Mariner hardcover. (June)