not quite....... Sadly,i found this book to be very episodic and padded out to the enth degree.There was never an opportunity to engage with the characters or to feel any kind of emotion for their tragedy.Rather like the detective in the story i was left feeling rather duped though a little more clued up on English policing in Victorian times.
The suspicions of Mr Whicher What a huge disappointment this was. From the reviews and 'blurb' I'd imagined I'd be reading a thriller. Not a bit of it, this is a piece of history as painstakingly put together as it is mind numbingly dull to read. As a historical text book, this is fine, as a bedtime story, it is guaranteed to put you to sleep, as a holiday read it is a no no.
I couldn't put it down... I just finished this book last night and I have to say it is one of those books that you mourn finishing - What will I read now? I love social history but am not so much a historian that I can read straight-up history books although I keep trying. What I loved so much about this book is that the author clearly did painstaking research, not only around the story itself but in researching the social history of that time as it connected to the story being told. It brought Victorian England to life for me and... more info
murder as social and cultural history This excellent, readable book explores a number of fascinating strands of mid-Victorian social and cultural history through the story of a real-life child murder. In 1860 a four year old boy, Saville Kent, disappears from his nursery at his father's country house in Road, Wiltshire (now Rode, Somerset) and after a search is found murdered in an outside privy. It didn't need Sherlock Holmes or Fabian of the Yard to work out that the killer was a member of the household. And, as Kate Summerscale so ably... more info
