I watched a documentary last year about the execution in 1923 of Edith Thompson and her lover Freddy Bywaters for the murder of Edith's husband Percy, and wanted to read more about the case. There are various books about the 'crime of passion', most famously by Rene Weis, but I thought a fictionalised account might be more accessible and emotional. Jill Dawson's narrative is certainly that, bringing a wholly imagined but no less sympathetic version of Edie to life, if that is the right choice of word.

Told in a patchwork but well-paced blend of real newspaper accounts, fictional letters from Edie in jail to Freddy, and in flashback, the author creates a strong personality for the woman sentenced to death for flouting tradition and having a vivid imagination. Edie's letters to Freddy, which he never receives but flow from her prison issue pencil in a twisted sort of stream of consciousness, allow her to be honest about her feelings while deceiving herself about the future.

Did Edith Thompson goad her lover into attacking her husband? Should she have been sentenced to death for writing passionate letters to a man she wasn't married to, and imagining ways to get rid of the obstacle between them? ('How much more interesting life is when one has an occasion to write about it!', Edie muses) I believe that Edie was judged for her lifestyle and not her part in a murder, but we will never know for sure, and only authors like Jill Dawson and crime biographers like Weis can offer her a defence. ( )

Fred and Edie is a semi-fictional retelling of a true crime of passion from the 1920s. With Edie Thompson and Freddy Bywater on trial for murder from the beginning of the book, Edie recounts the story of how the pair began the affair which ended with the vicious stabbing of Edie's husband.

Edie's love letters to Freddy were the undoing of her defence in the case, and Dawson has built very solidly on a number of those real letters to build a fictional account of Edie's thoughts both during the trial and in the period of the affair that led up to the murder. Much of her story is told through the letters she writes to Freddy from Holloway Prison, and it's an interesting portrayal of a case that shocked London at the time. Was Edie a co-conspirator in the murder, or despite her hatred of her husband was she unknowing about his deadly plans? Interestingly, Dawson leaves us to come to many of our own conclusions around that, and instead concentrates on Edie's blind love for Freddy. Was it true love, or was Edie simply a vain, silly, unhappy woman whose head was turned by the attention of a dashing, younger man?

I've read a few of Jill Dawson's books now (she initially piqued my interest after I attended a writing master class she gave many years ago), and I've always felt she's somewhat an under-read author despite many of her books receiving positive critical reviews. This one was shortlisted for both the Whitbread Novel of the Year and the Orange Prize of Fiction, and it's well-crafted. Although it's fairly obvious right from the start that this tale isn't going to end well, the evolution of the love affair and it's dire consequences draw you in quickly. As Edie narrates the story for us, we're sensitive as a reader to her many character shortcomings, especially her vanity, naivety and inability to absorb the full risks attached to her trial.

4 stars - predictable yet page-turning at the same time. Another great Dawson read (and what a great cover - so apt). ( )

The Thompson and Bywaters case of 1922
By sally tarbox on 31 Oct. 2012
Format: Paperback
I couldn't put this novel down; it followed Edith Thompson through her 3 months in jail accused of involvement in her husband's murder. In letters to her younger lover-and accomplice -Frederick Bywaters, Dawson recreates their relationship and the romantic yearnings of a woman stifled in an unhappy marriage.
From early certainty that she will get off to an increasing and horrific awareness that death awaits them both:
'When I remember the summer we spent in Shanklin I picture that photograph we had taken on the beach, all four of us. Percy sucking on his pipe and Freddy squinting into the sun and me without a hat and you, you broad-brimmed and healthy, clutching at your white gloves. I try to keep from thinking this, but the thought won't stay away. That a year from now, of the four of us, only you will be able to look at that photograph again.'
Incidentally, just as good, if not better, is F. Tennyson Jesse's novel 'A Pin to see the Peepshow' which covers the same case. ( )

I first became aware of Edie Thompson when I read some of her letters to Fred Bywaters in a book of love letters. At the time, I didn't realize this passionate, eloquent woman and her lover would be tried and convicted of the murder of her husband.

This novel incorporates some of her actual letters, (though few of Bywaters' as his to her were not found, and were presumed destroyed) and newspaper stories of the trial. The author has woven those together with some popular culture theories (both at the time and after) as to what actually happened. The result was an extremely readable novel. I listened to this on audio, and the reader was excellent. ( )

This came in the mail last week, a BookCrossing bookring. I didn’t like it at first. Fred and Edie, I learned, are murderers. They fell in love with each other and Edie’s husband was in the way. The two teamed up to kill him and be free to be together. Of course, it did not work out as they had planned and both Fred and Edie ended up in jail for murder.Fred and Edie is based on a true story. Edie wrote letters to Fred and the trials of the two were heavily publicized; the author used these to create this book. The book is written mostly as letters Edie wrote to Fred, with a few newspaper articles interspersed in the story. Most of the letters are the author’s invention, but a few are actual letters written by Edie and all the newspaper articles are genuine.I liked the book more as I read along. Edie and Fred were not glorified in the book, nor condemned, but, instead, were revealed to be real human beings, doing things that were both good and bad. ( )