First up for Mystery Month: The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher by Kate Summerscale, subtitled: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective.
Like Rosemary Harris' Pushing Up Daisies, the frontispiece of this book features a map; in this case, the "plan of Road-Hill House at the scene of the crime."
This is a fascinating book that I especially wanted to feature because I think it will interest you, too. Let me quote from the book sleeve:
" 'This is the story of a murder committed in an English country house in 1860, perhaps the most disturbing murder of its time. The search for the killer threatened the career of one of the first and greatest detectives, inspired a 'detective-fever' throughout England, and set the course of detective fiction. For the family of the victim, it was a murder of unusual horror, which threw suspicion on almost everyone within the house. For the country as a whole, the murder at Road Hill became a kind of myth -- a dark fable about the Victorian family and the dangers of detection.'
So begins Kate Summerscale's enthralling re-creation of a crime that reverberated far beyond the lanes and fields of the English village where the body of three-year-old Saville Kent was found at the bottom of an outdoor privy, his throat viciously cut. The suspicion that fell upon the grieving family and their servants horrified the public; the thought of what might go on behind the closed doors of respectable middle-class homes -- scheming governesses, rebellious children, insanity, jealousy, loneliness, and loathing -- aroused both fear and excitement across the country.
Scotland Yard sent its best man -- Detective-Inspector Jonathan Whicher -- to investigate the murder at Road Hill. Whicher embodied the ideal Victorian detective, a figure who could turn brutal crimes into intellectual puzzles and find order in chaos. But this case tested his powers. Although he was soon sure he had solved the mystery, he failed to find the evidence he needed, and by the time he returned to London he was the object of national scorn. At a time when issues of surveillance and state intrusion were of growing public concern, many found his methods an assault on privacy, a crime of a different kind. When the truth about the murder began to emerge five years later, Whicher had retired from the force. Yet his legacy lives on in fiction. His investigation at Road Hill marked the beginning of our fascination with murder mysteries, and he was an inspiration for the tough, quirky, all-knowing and all-seeing investigator, from the cryptic Sgt. Cuff in Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone to Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade.
With imagination and verve, The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher unfolds like a Victorian crime novel, replete with clues that only the most observant will discern -- and every detail is true."
ENJOY!
Message Edited by becke_davis on 10-06-2008 06:31 PM
