The Laughing Hangman cover art

The Laughing Hangman

Nicholas Bracewell, Book 8

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The Laughing Hangman

By: Edward Marston
Narrated by: David Thorpe
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About this listen

A laughing hangman turns the stage into the gallows...

When Nicholas Bracewell finds himself once again in the parlour of his lost love, Anne Hendrik, he was not expecting her entreaties to embroil him in the murder of a beloved choir master. Between tales of cruelty, forgotten maps of London and a butcher determined to rescue his son, it is yet another mystery for the book keeper to untangle. But will his quest endanger Lord Westfield’s Men?

As their latest play, The Misfortunes of Marriage, threatens to break them apart beneath the playwright’s own belligerent ribaldry, the threat of the hangman stalks ever closer. And with every step his laughter rings with the power to turn even the hallowed stage into the gallows.

©2013 Edward Marston (P)2015 Allison & Busby Ltd Amateur Sleuths Historical Mystery Traditional Detectives Fiction Detective

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David Thorpe, as ever, delivers an excellent performance. But that's where the positive elements end. I can forgive the formulaic plot. I can forgive the anachronisms. I can forgive the repetitious use of adjectives. What I can't forgive is the appalling characterisation of female characters. The positive female characters are virtually only characterised in terms of their lustfulness or lustworthiness, or otherwise are shrews or doormats. I don't recall the last time I saw women written so two-dimensionally. Apparently In Marston's version of Elizabethan England, women have access to a hitherto unsuspected form of contraception, because they seem to be up for a lot of extra-marital shagging without any reference to the consequence. It's pathetic.

I wanted to be able to persist as I really like Thorpe's performances on the whole, but If I hear one more description of her "inviting smile" and the male characters "parting the gates to enter the garden of heaven" without any real substance to them beyond that, I'm going to barf.

I'm not someone who would think of myself as a feminist, but I am beginning to see their point listening to this dross.

Excellent performance, sexist writing

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