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| Author: Kate Summerscale
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Category: Book
List Price: £16.99
Buy New: £9.33
You Save: £7.66 (45%)
New (20) Used (6) Collectible (1) from £7.56
Avg. Customer Rating:  31 reviews
Sales Rank: 15219
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 384
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.7 x 1.5
ISBN: 0747582157
EAN: 9780747582151
ASIN: 0747582157
Publication Date: April 7, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Overrated account of famous 19th century murder October 27, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Do we really need another book on the Road Hill Murder? I would imagine the facts of the case and the identity of the murderer are well known. There have been several books as well as TV documentaries and dramatisations; I recall a particularly good serial 'A Question of Guilt' which was shown on the BBC in 1980.
There is one omission in Summerscale's account of the case: whilst considering the missing article of clothing, she ignores the significance of the murder weapon itself. Considering its role in the murderer's confession and trial, a consideration of the ethics of the sanctity of the confessional would also have been useful.
Summerscale also includes an examination of the emerging role of the police detective, both in reality and in fiction. This method does mean that at times she goes off topic and discusses other cases, which have no bearing on Whicher's investigation of the Road Hill Murder.
Despite the encomia heaped on this book, both in the press and on the covers of the book, it is a competent account and nothing more.
 yawn October 15, 2008
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
While this is a painstakingly researched book, I found it to be very dull and that the murder case itself was not at all interesting. I was very disappointed after all the wonderful reviews!
 Fascinating and chilling October 14, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Kate Summerscale has crafted a pacy and exhaustive book on a very sinister crime that took place in 1860 in the small Wiltshire town of Road. I found it a gripping tale which had a fascinating effect on the Victorian public, and had a pronounced influence on the development of the crime novel and the creation of the fictional lone detective.
The Road story was an infanticide that shocked the public not only with the horror of the event itself, but also with the way the detective (Mr Whicher) probed into the attendant family's private life in a fashion that was repugnant to many of the day's public and press. This book, then, is not just the story of a murder but also an account of Victorian mores and prejudices, and the two got very tangled up during the investigation. Kate Summerscale unweaves the story superbly, and has written an extremely readable and perceptive book that is well deserving of the acclaim it has received.
Absolutely engrossing October 11, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is a retelling of the Road House murder of 1860. The Kents - an outwardly conventional and respectable middle class family - are horrified to discover that three year old Saville has disappeared from his cot. He is soon found gruesomely murdered and his body dumped in the outside privy. The local police arrive and begin a somewhat haphazard investigation. They decline to ask any questions of the family in the belief that people of their class would be too genteel to be involved in murder. Later Detective Inspector Jonathan Whicher arrives from London. He soon suspects one of the Kent daughters but she is released by the court and Whicher generally castigated by all for his error.
Kate Summerscale has succeeded in writing a non-fiction book that reads like a modern detective story. Her research is obviously meticulous and she brings to life all the main characters as well as the social history of the time. Her references to Wilkie Collins, Dickens and Henry James all help to place Whicher at the heart of the developing interest in detective fiction. Even those who already know the story of the Road House murder will find this a page-turner.
But at the end we are still left with an enigma. Constance Kent - was she mad, bad or abused? We will probably never know the whole truth.
Padding out the story October 10, 2008
5 out of 8 found this review helpful
Oh dear, what on earth were the judges thinking when they gave this book the Samuel Johnson Prize? It is a page-turner, I grant you, which is no doubt why it won the prize, and it's cleverly conceived, written in the style of a country-house murder, the genre it explores. But there have been many books on the Constance Kent case, perhaps the most famous murder in the Victorian era, and Summerscale has nothing new to say. Worse, the book is padded out with social history, elementary details that could have come directly from any one of countless history books on the shelves of Waterstones. In short, the book is not nearly as good as its many plaudits in the press and book prize judges think.
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