The suspicions of Mr. Whicher : or, The murder at Road Hill House

From Publishers Weekly Starred Review. Summerscale ( The Queen of Whale Cay ) delivers a mesmerizing portrait of one of England's first detectives and the gruesome murder investigation that nearly destroyed him. In 1860, three-year-old Saville Kent was found murdered in the outdoor privy of his family's country estate. Local police scrambled for clues, but to no avail. Scotland Yard Det.-Insp. Jonathan Jack Whicher was called in and immediately suspected the unthinkable: someone in the Kent family killed Saville. Theories abounded as everyone from the nursemaid to Saville's father became a suspect. Whicher tirelessly pursued every lead and became convinced that Constance Kent, Saville's teenage half-sister, was the murderer, but with little evidence and no confession, the case went cold and Whicher returned to London, a broken man. Five years later, the killer came forward with a shocking account of the crime, leading to a sensational trial. Whicher is a fascinating hero, and readers will delight in following every lurid twist and turn in his investigation. (Apr.) Copyright � Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Review "The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective," by Kate Summerscale (Bloomsbury). In crime annals, it's right up there with the Lindbergh trial or the mystery surrounding JonBenet Ramsey: In 1860, one of Scotland Yard's finest was sent to solve the murder of a little boy at an upscale address near London. It turned out Jack Whicher's hunch was right, and his footwork fed the public imagination as well as writers such as Charles Dickens. Sadly, failure to clinch the case in court upended Whicher's career." �Margo Hammond and Ellen Heltzell, *Minneapolis Star-Tribune * " Takes you back to a specific place and time with all the imagination and skill of a top-tier historical novelist. You hang on every word, flipping pages faster than you can read them�.If you like your murder mysteries wrapped up in a neat little package, this isn�t the book for you.� But if you�re looking for a complex, intellectually stimulating thriller that will leave you breathless, well, this mystery is well worth inspecting." �*Fairfield County Weekly * �[A] fastidious reconstruction and expansive analysis of the Road Hill murder case�Summerscale smartly uses an energetic narrative voice and a suspenseful pace, among other novelistic devices, to make her factual material read with the urgency of a work of fiction. What she has constructed, specifically, is a traditional country-house mystery, more brutal than cozy, but presenting the same kind of intellectual puzzle as her fictional models and adorned, as such books once were, with wonderfully old-fashioned maps, diagrams, engravings, courtroom sketches and other illustrations�More important, Summerscale accomplishes what modern genre authors hardly bother to do anymore, which is to use a murder investigation as a portal to a wider world. When put in historical context, every aspect of this case tells us something about mid-Victorian society�The author's startling final twist both vindicates her fallen hero and advances an �aggressive� attack on moral hypocrisy in his day and ours.� �Marilyn Stasio, *New York Times Book Review * �Reads like a modern crime novel, filled with intriguing tidbits about the beginnings of criminal detection and the modern mystery crime novel." �K. Sue Collins, *The Tampa Tribune * "A terrific book...opens up a dark door in the Victorian credenza--dense with detail, and yet with a nimbleness to the writing that's unusual even for a very good detective story."� Nicholson Baker "A brilliant reconstruction of the obstacles facing detectives long before the advent of forensic technology." � Nick Owchar, LA Times Book Review Kate Summerscale's THE SUSPICIONS OF MR. WHICHER (Walker; 360 pages) is not just a dark, vicious true-crime story; it is the story of the birth of forensic science, founded on the new and disturbing idea that innocent, insignificant domestic details can reveal unspeakable horrors to those who know how to read them.� Lev Grossman, *Time * �One eloquent doozy of a true-crime thriller.�� Entertainment Weekly , Grade A- ��The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher" combines a thumping good mystery yarn with fine social and literary history.�� Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air �This is a great biographical fiction of an interesting real life mid nineteenth century detective working a shocking homicide case.� � Harriet Klausner, Mysterylovers.com �Fascinating.�� Roger Miller, *Denver Post * "If you are a mystery lover, or if you have ever wondered how the modern love of the genre began, you'll enjoy Summerscale's tracing of the early days of the profession and the fascination it exerted...a fascinating look at Victorian life, death and detection" � Mary Foster, Associated Press �Summerscale�s clean writing makes The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher so dynamic that she can�t be accused of �freezing� the past�instead, she has done a masterly job of reviving it, with all its curiosities and contradictions. But, most strikingly, she has created an enthralling mystery by overlaying the fictional tools of misdirection and suspense onto a nonfiction narrative that, in its day, helped inspire writers to create a new fictional genre�a strange and very impressive feat.�� Britt Peterson*, The American Scholar * �told and interwoven with admirable skill and definition.�� Bookpage �A bang-up sleuthing adventure."� Kirkus Reviews "A mesmerizing portrait of one of England�s first detectives and the gruesome murder investigation that nearly destroyed him�.Whicher is a fascinating hero, and readers will delight in following every lurid twist and turn in his investigation."� Publishers Weekly , Starred Review �Summerscale organizes the book like a period novel, with a denouement that suggests that full justice was never done. Erik Larson ( The Devil in the White City ) fans will be enthralled.�� Library Journal "Summerscale has produced not only a dazzling non-fiction thriller, but also an acute work of literary and social history."� The Daily Express "Kate Summerscale�s book is 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, we are drawn into a detective story within a detective story that takes us halfway into the 20th century and across the sea to Tasmania before the clues finally add up to what surely must be the last word on the Road Hill Murder."� The Daily Mail "Summerscale has constructed nothing less than a masterpiece� The Suspicions of Mr Whicher is at one and the same time a crime thriller, a sociological history, a biography and a fascinating essay on the nature of investigation� My shelves are stacked with books about crime, but none more satisfying than this."� Craig Brown, *The Mail on Sunday * �Summerscale has done excellent research in ferreting out the details of this curious case.�� [She] has come up with a new solution to the puzzle and in doing so has produced a book that deepens and expands the knowledge of what one would have thought was an already over-examined case: a remarkable achievement.�� The Sunday Times � The fascinating story of a famous Victorian murder case - and the notorious detective who solved itIt is a summer's night in 1860. In an elegant detached Georgian house in the village of Road, Wiltshire, all is quiet. Behind shuttered windows the Kent family lies sound asleep. At some point after midnight a dog barks. The family wakes the next morning to a horrific discovery: an unimaginably gruesome murder has taken place in their home. The household reverberates with shock, not least because the guilty party is surely still among them. Jack Whicher of Scotland Yard, the most celebrated detective of his day, reaches Road Hill House a fortnight later. He faces an unenviable task: to solve a case in which the grieving family are the suspects. The murder provokes national hysteria. The thought of what might be festering behind the closed doors of respectable middle-class homes - scheming servants, rebellious children, insanity, jealousy, loneliness and loathing - arouses fear and a kind of excitement. But when Whicher reaches his shocking conclusion there is uproar and bewilderment. 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; a country house steeped in secrets. In The Suspicions of Mr Whicher Kate Summerscale untangles the facts behind this notorious case, bringing it back to vivid, extraordinary life. _______________ A beautiful new limited edition paperback of The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher , published as part of the Bloomsbury Modern Classics list _______________ WINNER OF THE SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER A RICHARD AND JUDY BOOK CLUB PICK _______________ 'A remarkable achievement' - Sunday Times 'A classic, to my mind, of the finest documentary writing' - John le Carré 'Absolutely riveting' - Sarah Waters, Guardian _______________ 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. _______________ 'Nothing less than a masterpiece' - Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday 'Terrific' - Ian Rankin 'A triumph' - Observer 'Gripping, unputdownable ' - Sunday Telegraph 'A terrific read in the Wilkie Collins tradition' - Susan Hill 'The best whodunnit of the year - and it's all true ... Agatha Christie, eat your heart out' - Sebastian Shakespeare, Tatler Saville's Corpse, Already Stiff, Was Laid On A Table Beneath The Kitchen Window; Upstairs The Shape Of His Sleeping Self Was Still Indented On The Sheets And Pillow Of The Cot. 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. "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. The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher is a provocative work of non-fiction 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."--Publisher description