Blurb
England 1648.
As the English Civil Wars still simmer.
Hezekiah Hillier visits London after the death of his wife and son, and goes to the Hospital of Bedlam to view the inmates.He is falsely imprisoned by his brother in the asylum, but vows to escape and one day have his revenge.
Hez is helped by his friend Blandford Candy to flee to France, where he joins the Company of Moliere as an actor, and fights with the King of France’s Musketeers in their war with Spain, but Hez is driven only by his desire to return to England and face his brother.
England 1660.
Hez returns to England, hell bent on revenge, and only one man can stop him: his old friend, Blandford Candy.
My Review
Although my curiosity about Bedlam prompted me to pick up this book, conditions were so wretched for our protagonist Hezekiah that I almost put it down. His own brother traitorously shut him into the asylum and stole his possessions and even his estate (he was an aristocrat); I couldn’t imagine a worse situation. Fortunately, his old friend Blandford Candy happened to stumble across his cell, pulled some strings and freed him from his imprisonment. Of course, Hezekiah needed to leave the country, but his friend set him up with a traveling actor’s group in France, led by none other than the famous Moliere. It was a perfect concealment. At first, Hezekiah was completely out of his element, but he discovered a hidden talent for clowning and jesting, especially when wearing the guise of Scaramouche. He was beginning to enjoy his new life, but it was only temporary:
Hezekiah told the troupe of his past. He saw little reason to hide his secrets. They were suitably melodramatic about the whole affair, cursing his brother and weeping at his wife and son’s death. Madeleine and Genevieve covered him in kisses, promising to lift his sad soul. Even Joseph swore to call out Elias should they ever meet. Hez thought it unlikely, but he told them his plans: to learn the mummers trade, so as to pass unrecognized in his homeland, and, to learn how to kill. None of the French actors thought this strange, it was a quest of honour and love, but Genevieve warned Hez more than once that revenge was neither an appetizing nor fulfilling dish.
I see this as a kind of a morality tale. At first, we are really on Hezekiah’s side. But when his obsession about revenge turns murderous, and he doesn’t see, or care, how his compulsion threatens to take over his life, we lose sympathy. This story is very obliquely told, or at least observed, by Candy, who periodically drops in a comment to let us know he is there. I read this book as a stand-alone, and though there were occasional scene changes that threw me into confusion, for the most part I had no trouble following it.
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Visit-Bedlam-BLANDFORD-CANDY-ADVENTURE-ebook/dp/B0HBWHCD72
