Book Review: Maude Horton’s Glorious Revenge by Lizzie Pook

A quote on the cover of Maude Horton’s Glorious Revenge by Lizzie Pook loudly proclaims it as escapist fiction, although I’m hesitant to slap that label on it. Yes, it transports the reader to another time and place, but it does more than distract – it educates! Pook herself is a journalist and traveler, and apparently, a very thorough researcher, as the end of this book includes a few pages of historical notes and context that I found very helpful. After reading books about a certain historical period, many of us often find ourselves googling the facts we just read, seeing how accurate the author got everything, but Pook does that legwork for us, giving a well-rounded account of public hangings, the result of Sir John Franklin’s doomed Arctic exploration, and the beginnings of Madam Tussaud’s Chamber of Horrors. There’s lots of fun to be had in these pages for those who like a plot-driven historical read.

Plot Summary

The book begins and ends with a public hanging, which were common in 1850s London. Maude and Constance live with their grandfather, a pharmacist. Together they grew up in his shop, but they were very different people with different ambitions. We meet Maude as she is grieving the death of Constance, who disguised herself as a young boy and slipped onto a ship, a rescue mission meant to bring back the doomed men of Sir John Franklin’s Arctic expedition. Upon the ship’s return, Maude asked after Constance and learned she had died due to ‘misadventure’, but a young man fed up with the corruption of the commission slips Maude the journal that Constance had kept before she passed away. This journal contains damning information about the higher-ups on board, which is why it was kept hidden. The narrative switches between Maude’s present-day investigations into the activities on the ship, the journal entries Constance left behind, and the experiences of a young man who was also on the ship with Constance. Together with Maude the reader realizes who the murderer is and she begins to track this person closely; we then realize there is more than one criminal element involved.

My Thoughts

This book ticks all the boxes; suspense, murder, illicit love affairs, hidden treasure, dangerous secrets, and of course, adventures at sea. In addition to the rollicking plot, I found myself fully immersed in a world that offered a new perspective on what life was like as a Londoner at that time. Pook’s characters find themselves at public hangings quite a few times over the course of the book, which invites a really fascinating political and moral debate over the death penalty. What seems more ‘fair’ than exacting the same punishment on someone who doled it out in the first place? And when the public are allowed to view it; does it dissuade future criminal activity, or does it sensationalize the criminals? At one point some characters are invited on a macabre ‘tour’ of a town where a hanging is scheduled to take place, and the event is run as a major attraction, including the sale of special pamphlets that describe in grisly detail the murders, as well as souvenirs and special food items being sold to the crowd as they await the hanging. Considering the entire book is truly about revenge – what is appropriate, and what isn’t – this historical element elevates this book from a way to pass the time to a lively discussion point that any book club would enjoy.

The writing is descriptive, but not overly fussy. Pook spends time setting the scene, but then quickly moves onto the characters and what they are doing, giving us just enough of a picture in our head to place the people, but not enough to slow down the narrative. The first page of the book situates us in the city of London, offering a scene that we will return to often:

“An eel-jelly smog hangs low over the Thames. The air is wet, breathing it like shrugging a damp greatcoat onto the body. Old Bailey is swarming with humans, the ripe-sweat stink of twenty thousand or so. Half of London, it seems, is here for the show, for there is nothing like a hanging to lure mankind out of his house.”

-p. 1 of Maude Horton’s Glorious Revenge by Lizzie Pook

I have nothing but great things to say about this book. It may not find its way onto the Booker list, but it’s sure to sell many copies once people discover how much fun it is. Highly recommended!