Monday, April 22, 2019

A royal Stuart scandal: The Poison Bed by Elizabeth Fremantle

How does one write a successful thriller about a well-known historical event, in which not only is the outcome known, but most characters once lived? This would seem an unusual challenge, but in The Poison Bed, Elizabeth Fremantle manages it by amping up the psychological tension and keeping readers in suspense about the true nature of her male and female leads.

In the early 17th century, the so-called Overbury Affair agitated the royal court of James I of England. While named after its victim, a minor English poet who met an untimely end in 1613, the scandal surrounding his death spiraled out, two years later, to ensnare prominent personalities, staining the court’s image.

As it begins, the two people at the center, a married couple, sit in separate cells in the Tower of London awaiting trial for Thomas Overbury’s murder. Frances Howard, a noted beauty, tells her story to her baby’s wet-nurse, while her husband Robert Carr shares his own perspective of what happened. The ultimate question: which of them was responsible?

A member of the notorious Howard family, Frances had first been wed to the Earl of Essex, while Robert, the king’s favorite, could use a wife of his own to hide the truth about his own affair with King James. Engineering the annulment of Frances’s marriage and her subsequent union to Robert is her great-uncle, the Earl of Northampton, who has plans to tie his family close to royal power. The couple themselves feel a surprising attraction to one another, but Thomas Overbury, Robert’s good friend and former mentor, stands in his way, since he thinks Frances is an immoral whore (he’s blunt about it, too).

The atmosphere is dark and claustrophobic throughout, as conveyed in the psychologically confining environment, with its glimpses of violence and practitioners of black magic. Fremantle effectively depicts the venal sexual politics of early Jacobean England, with nearly everyone vying for their own preferment at the cost of others. Readers may look in vain for anyone to admire; pity may be the best that one can do. The two accounts, by Robert and Frances, run in unison early on, but differences in their stories creep in. A twist partway through turns their situation on its head.

Personally, I found their personalities so unpleasant, apart from the nursemaid Nelly and the Carrs’ innocent baby--who isn’t named--that I found myself closing the book from time to time as a form of mental escape. There’s no denying the effectiveness of Fremantle’s approach to this toxic historical scandal, though.  It should appeal to those who enjoy The Girl on the Train-style thrillers.

The Poison Bed was published by Pegasus this month; in its UK edition, published by Michael Joseph, the author writes as E. C. Fremantle. Thanks to the publisher for sending me an ARC at my request.

6 comments:

  1. I read this a couple weeks ago, and I agree with what you said, Sarah. The two protagonists are hard to like, and the switch that turns everything on its head is the kind of authorial conceit I can't stand. Yet I had to finish the book; the narrative was that compelling. And I very much admire how Fremantle tied her characters' feelings to the physical world (in this case, often animals--horses, falcons, other birds). A blood-curdling book, in many ways, yet no less powerful for that.

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    1. Glad you agree, Larry. This was a memorable reading experience, but I prefer her straight historicals; I didn't much care for being in these characters' heads. Good point about the comparisons to the physical world.

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  2. Agree with what you wrote, Sarah. I, too, had to put it down a few times to get away from it, just so extremely dark and unpleasant, different from her earlier books certainly. That whole Overbury case has intrigued me for years, and Fremantle really did a job with it. Such nasty people, all of them, thought the whole court atmosphere seemed very accurate in the characters' quests for favor and power. Interesting reading.

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    1. I hadn't read much about the Overbury affair beforehand, though knew the names of the parties. No wonder it was such a scandal; it's horrible. And it sounds like the royal court deserved its negative reputation. From what I'd read since, the depiction was pretty accurate.

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  3. Ah... I see... not for me, then. Thanks!

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    1. Glad the review was useful in that sense! It's not my type of book either, but good for those who enjoy dark thrillers.

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