Present Books To The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective
| Original Title: | The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective |
| ISBN: | 0802715354 (ISBN13: 9780802715357) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Characters: | Constance Emilie Kent, Francis Savile Kent, Detective Jonathan Whicher |
| Setting: | Rode, Somerset, England,1860(United Kingdom) |
| Literary Awards: | Macavity Award Nominee for Best Nonfiction/Critical (2009), Anthony Award Nominee for Best Critical Nonfiction (2009), Agatha Award Nominee for Best Nonfiction (2008), Galaxy British Book Awards for Book of the Year (2009), Edgar Award Nominee for Best Fact Crime (2009) Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction (2008) |
Point Containing Books The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective
| Title | : | The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective |
| Author | : | Kate Summerscale |
| Book Format | : | Hardcover |
| Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 360 pages |
| Published | : | April 27th 2020 by Walker & Company |
| Categories | : | Nonfiction. History. Crime. True Crime. Mystery. Historical. Victorian |
Representaion Supposing Books The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective
The dramatic story of the real-life murder that inspired the birth of modern detective fiction.
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.
Rating Containing Books The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective
Ratings: 3.45 From 18085 Users | 1983 ReviewsDiscuss Containing Books The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective
If you like 19th century British novels...If you like detective novels...If you are interested in the development of the novel...If you have any interest in the development of the science of forensics...If you like true crime...If you enjoy good factual writing...If you like a good story...... then this book has it all. It's like the author asked me to write a list of all the things I like to read most, shook them up in a shaker and came out with the perfect book.I drove my husband nuts while IThis book really went beyond what I was expecting from it. Aside from re-telling the mystery of a 3 year old's murder, the author also delved into the life and thoughts of one of the first and greatest dectectives, Mr. Whicher. Since I had never heard of this detective or this murder before, it was shocking to realize how many famous books were so greatly influenced by the story. For instance, Dickens was highly interested in this case, and Lady Audley's Secret was quite heavily based upon the
3.5 stars!Considering I'm quite local to the area near where this happened in 1860, I had no idea about this shocking real-life murder until I found a copy of this book in a charity shop. A young three-year-old boy is found slain outside the family home and fingers get pointed around various occupants including the victim's older siblings and the servants. Although I liked how accurate the geography was, the pacing was very slow-going. Most of the characters I wasn't keen on, due to their
The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher by Kate Summerscale is an account of a real Victorian murder mystery investigated by Jack Whicher, one of the first nine Scotland Yard detectives. In an upper middle class country home, a terrible murder occurred. Three-year-old Saville Kent was discovered dead in a privvy, his throat slashed. A drawing room window had been found open, but it quickly became apparent that no maurading stranger had broken in and committed the dire deed---only one of the family could
Superb historical documentary of police detectivesThis is an amazing book. Rarely have I read a book which has been so meticulously researched. There is an unbelievable amount of detail about the origins of official police detective work, the personalities involved, the journalism of the mid-nineteenth century, the Kent family of Road, the famous and not-so-famous people of that time, and the continuing history of the characters involved into the twentieth century.So, if I think that this book's
Like most people, I bought this book because I was intrigued by the true story of murder in a good Victorian family, and the detective mystery that followed. I didn't pay for 200 pages of what read like some friggin mediocre senior honors thesis. I don't care about how the murder turned up in Wiklie Collins, I don't care what Dickens thought about the crime, I don't care which novels it inspired. This book was just saturated with end-notes, footnotes, and quotes ... not that they were
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