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ASIN : 0747582157
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Editorial Reviews
Review
'A pacy analysis of a true British murder case from 1860, the unravelling of which involved one of the earliest Scotland Yard detectives and inspired sensation novelists such as Dickens and Wilkie Collins Absolutely riveting' Sarah Waters, Guardian Summerscale has constructed nothing less than a masterpiece My shelves are stacked with books about crime, but none more satisfying than this' Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday 'Sparse, melancholy, beautifully written the year's most beguiling biography' Independent 'A wonder of style, content and research' Time Out
Painstaking but never boring recreation of a sensational 1860 murder brings to shivering life the age of the Victorian detective.The Road Hill case served as fodder for the emerging detective genre taken up with relish by such authors as Dickens, Poe and Wilkie Collins. It perplexed detectives at the time and was resolved five years after the deed - and then only partially and unsatisfactorily, avers British journalist and biographer Summerscale (The Queen of Whale Cay: The Eccentric Story of 'Joe' Carstairs, Fastest Woman on Water, 1997, etc.). She models this engaging true-crime tale on the traditional country-house murder mystery, packed with secretive family members moving about with hidden motives in a commodious old manor house. On June 30, 1860, in the Wiltshire village of Road, three-year-old Saville Kent was removed in the dead of night from his cot in the room he shared with his nursemaid, suffocated, stabbed and dumped in the privy outside the kitchen. In addition to his parents, Samuel and Mary Kent, the inhabitants of Road Hill House included numerous servants and Samuel's four children from his previous marriage, each harboring various grievances since their mother's untimely death. After the local constable made a mess of the investigation, authorities called in Scotland Yard's "prince of detectives," Jonathan Whicher, then at the height of his career at age 45. The author dispassionately presents highlights from the record of Whicher's interviews with servants and family members, allowing readers to fill in the blanks much as the detective had to do. On largely circumstantial evidence, he arrested Samuel's 16-year-old daughter Constance, but she was soon released, and the press ridiculed Whicher for accusing an innocent girl. In 1865, however, she confessed to the crime and after a sensational trial served a 20-year prison sentence. Summerscale pursues the story over decades, enriching the account with explanations of the then-new detective terminology and methods and suggesting a convincing motive for Constance's out-of-the-blue confession.A bang-up sleuthing adventure. (Kirkus Reviews)
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.'
The Sunday Times
'Summerscale has done excellent research in ferreting out the details of this curious case . . . a remarkable achievement.'
Book Description
The Queen of Whale Cay was a Times number one bestseller. It has been optioned for film, and translation rights have been sold in several countries.For fans of Conan Doyle, Wilkie Collins and Agatha ChristieRights on Whicher have been sold in the USA, Germany, Spain, Italy, France, Russia, Holland and Brazil
Ekow Eshun, Newsnight Review
Very simply, this is a fantastic book, fantastically written and it's a book of deep moral purpose.
Nicholson Baker, Radio 5 Books Panel
Just terrific... I thought there was a nimbleness to the writing. It's dense with detail but yet there is a lightness to it that is very unusual for even a very good detective story... One of the great things is it opens up a new door, you're looking into a life that is very accurately and richly described and you learn a lot about the period - you're in a very well-sailed boat.
Ian Rankin in The Guardian
What the book does brilliantly...is look at notions of class, criminality, human nature and religion in an age of change... engrossing.
The Independent
'The best locked-room murder story you'll read all year. Bravo to Summerscale for breathing so much life into what could have been a dustily historical police procedural.'
Product Description
It 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; and, 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.
Customer Reviews
If she'd only kept to the plot .... (2008-08-26)  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 (2008-08-25)  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... (2008-08-23) 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!
Fascinating and truly gripping - if not quite perfect (2008-08-18)  "The Suspicions of Mr Whicher" is a fascinating account of a Victorian murder mystery. I was not familiar with the Road Hill House murder case, but it appears to be well-known - which means I had a significant gap in my knowledge of British true crime stories. In 1860, the gruesome and tragic killing of a young boy, Saville Kent, at his countryside home and in the dead of night, gripped the nation, with everyone in Britain, it seems (including, for example, Charles Dickens) having their opinion as to who had committed the brutal murder, and with what motive. The newspapers carried daily reports of developments (or rumours) in the case. Most people were convinced, like the detectives assigned to investigate the boy's death, that the answers lay not in a mysterious intruder with nefarious intent, but with the residents of Road Hill House itself. Kate Summerscale describes how the investigation developed, and fleshes out the central mystery, which if truth be told turns out to be rather slight, with fascinating detail about the 1860s, the Kent family, Mr. Whicher and his fellow detectives, and public reaction to the crime. Some reviewers seem to feel that the level of detail applied by Summerscale here amounts to "padding", but to my mind, it gives the story a real context and a sense of time and place and means the reader is fully immersed in the period as well as in the central mystery. I enjoyed learning about the development of the early detective force, and this discussion feels entirely appropriate in a book about a case that was one of the first to involve such detectives.Summerscale's narrative style is both highly readable and completely gripping. I read this book in a day, eager to know how (and indeed, whether) the mystery of the young boy's murder would be resolved, and keen to continue enjoying Summerscale's prose. Many true crime - and even historical - books fall far short of the level of research and insight that Kate Summerscale displays here, not to mention the quality of writing, which is first-rate. One point I must mention is that it is somewhat surprising that in such an obviously meticulously-researched book overflowing with examples of attention to detail, there should be errors. However, I noticed two, without looking for them. Firstly, on page 75 of the paperback edition, Summerscale tells us that the second Mrs Kent had a stillborn baby in 1854, and it was suggested by some that her stepson might be the father, though this was not possible as he had not been in the country at the right time. This explanation worked for the stillborn child "although it suggested nothing about the paternity of her next two children, Saville and Eveline". As the family tree in front of the book shows and the text makes clear, the next two children were Mary Amelia (born 1855) and Saville (born 1856). Eveline was born in 1858. Secondly, on page 92, Summerscale quotes a newspaper report that refers to Constance Kent as William's younger sister. Constance was William's elder sister by a year (Constance born 1844, William born 1845). The mistake is of the 19th-century reporter, not the author, but it is customary when an author quotes an incorrect account to point out any errors (with a "sic", footnote, etc), which is not done here.A bit disappointing, and perhaps a closer read of the book would turn up further inconsistencies. In any case, the book gets five stars from me, because rarely has a book in any genre gripped me as this one did. Highly recommended to those interested in true crime and the Victorian era, in particular.
Enchanting, facinating and a great read (2008-08-04) All the superlatives have been done but I have to say that this book is excellent. It has real life characters straight from Conan Doyle with a plot to match. Wonderfully written.It is also a beautifully produced book. Sit back and enjoy. Highly recommended.
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