Name: The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher
ISBN: 9781408801581

Kate Summerscale

WINNER OF THE SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER A RICHARD AND JUDY BOOK CLUB PICK 'The finest documentary writing' John le Carré 'Nothing less than a masterpiece' Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday 'Absolutely riveting' Sarah Waters, Guardian 'Terrific' Ian Rankin 'A triumph' Observer On a summer's morning in 1860, the Kent family awakes in their elegant Wiltshire home to a terrible discovery; their youngest son has been brutally murdered. When celebrated detective Jack Whicher is summoned from Scotland Yard he faces the unenviable task of identifying the killer – when the grieving family are the suspects. The original Victorian whodunnit, the murder and its investigation provoked national hysteria at the thought of what might be festering behind the locked doors of respectable homes – scheming servants, rebellious children, insanity, jealousy, loneliness and loathing.

or The Murder at Road Hill House

The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher

A true story that inspired a generation of writers such as Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens and Arthur Conan Doyle, this has all the hallmarks of the classic murder mystery - a body, a detective, and a country house steeped in secrets. The author untangles the facts behind this notorious case, bringing it back to vivid, extraordinary life.

Bloomsbury Modern Classics

an incredibly detail account of the road hill house murder and the ensuing frenzy. it was clear the book was researched in the depth to give a context as full as possible to both the crime and the setting.

the downside of this, however, is that at certain parts one cannot help but wonder whether the reader truly needs to know 

regardless, the writing flows easily and truly draws you in.

an incredibly detail account of the road hill house murder and the ensuing frenzy. it was clear the book was researched in the depth to give a context as full as possible to both the crime and the setting.

the downside of this, however, is that at certain parts one cannot help but wonder whether the reader truly needs to know all of this details.

regardless, the writing flows easily and truly draws you in.

Lara Steenbeke

Ditipriya Acharya

A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective

Maurice FitzGerald

Pierke Bosschieter

In June of 1860 three-year-old Saville Kent was found at the bottom of an outdoor privy with his throat slit. The crime horrified all England and led to a national obsession with detection, ironically destroying, in the process, the career of perhaps the greatest detective in the land. At the time, the detective was a relatively new invention; there were only eight detectives in all of England and rarely were they called out of London, but this crime was so shocking, as Kate Summerscale relates in her scintillating new book, that Scotland Yard sent its best man to investigate, Inspector Jonathan Whicher. Whicher quickly believed the unbelievable-that someone within the family was responsible for the murder of young Saville Kent. Without sufficient evidence or a confession, though, his case was circumstantial and he returned to London a broken man. Though he would be vindicated five years later, the real legacy of Jonathan Whicher lives on in fiction: the tough, quirky, knowing, and all-seeing detective that we know and love today...from the cryptic Sgt. Cuff in Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone to Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade. The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher is a provocative work of nonfiction that reads like a Victorian thriller, and in it kate Summerscale has fashioned a brilliant, multilayered narrative that is as cleverly constructed as it is beautifully written.

The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher or The Murder at Road Hill House

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