Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4501 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 384 pages

Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday
'Summerscale has constructed nothing less than a masterpiece. My shelves are stacked with books about crime, but none more satisfying than this.'

The Daily Mail
'A tour de force. It sweeps us irresistibly into the investigation, turning us into armchair detectives... Under the spell of [her] scrupulous intelligence and mesmerizing research'

The Daily Express
'Summerscale has produced not only a dazzling non-fiction thriller, but also an acute work of literary and social history.'

Customer Reviews

If she'd only kept to the plot ....
This book exists of three interwoven strands: a recounting of a murder, a social history of the period that the murder occured, and discussions of contemporary crime fiction.

The first strand worked fine, and I appreciate the necessity of the second, but the detours into the contemporary crime fiction completely ruined the rhythm of the book for me. Where I had been hooked, I found my mind wandering, hoping the book would get back on track in as short a time as possible.

The prose was also, at times, rather too flowery for my liking.

I would have enjoyed the book more if it were a straight account of the murder which, it must be said, the author has researched very well.

Gripping - for a while
Initially, I loved this book. It was gripping, and Summerscale is a great storyteller, able to pack her narrative with detail without becoming tedious. But about halfway through it just ran out of steam for me. Having not been able to put it down, I suddenly did, and couldn't be bothered to pick it up again.

interesting, but not gripping enough for me...
I found this book a bit of a chore, I'm afraid. It is very informative regarding the birth of the detective novel and the history of crime detection, but we know quite early on who the murderer is, so there is no suspense. Every page is littered with endless names of people and places, and I ended up flicking through pages to get on the with main business of the book. Very well written and researched, but not one for your holiday luggage!