The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale

The Suspicions of Mr Whicher

This is a non-fiction book about a murder that happened in 1860 in England. The situation is interesting: there were 12 people in the house, and the murdered boy was found outside. The house was opened from the inside, but not from the outside, so the killer must have been one of the family or servants living in the house.

The mystery is not solved until much later and even then it’s not really certain that this is really what happened. The book is, for a large part, about policing and detectives in the Victorian era. If you find that interesting, this is a great book.

The book also describes how Victorian literature is influenced by this murder and other murders around that time. For instance, Summerscale mentions books by Dickens and Wilkie Collins that use elements from the Road Hill House murder.

For me, the book didn’t hold enough interest, but I did finish it eventually.