James R

When it comes to the "unreliable narrator" genre, it would be hard to top someone with early onset, rapidly progressive Alzheimer's disease. Make that individual a renowned crime writer who may or may not be living out the stories he wrote, add a constantly shifting time frame, and you have the formula for either a very confusing storyline or a great psychological thriller. In this case, it is clearly the latter. Fluid timeframes, fact v. fiction, all combine in the first two-thirds of the book to give a real sense of the shifting sand that any Alzheimer patient experiences. One almost has the sense of sliding down that slope with the main character. The last third of the book accelerates the pace to the point where I couldn't put it down. A great read … I loved it.

Once Antonia Hodgson sets our plate with abundant characters and a malefic setting, The Devil in the Marshalsea turns into a real page turner. I was halfway through the book, when I passed-up golf with my son to race to the ending. This is a "locked room murder mystery" (in this case, locked prison and murders plural), and it is the Marshalsea prison itself that is the main character. The prison's unique internal social, legal, and organizational structure during the 18th century is a captivating historical lesson in itself, and it is this structure and the prison's brooding presence throughout the book that directs the characters and action. Four stars ... I had to withhold one star because the characters themselves seemed two-dimensional and some seemed only there to make the plot twists work.