Review of "The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: The True Story of Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective" by Kate Summerscale

 

This is a true crime story about the gruesome murder of a child in Victorian England.

In mid-1860, the relatively prosperous Kent family lived in a large house on Road Hill in the county of Kent, southeast of Greater London.


The Kents' Road Hill house


The county of Kent is southeast of Greater London

Samuel Kent and his second wife Mary were raising six children, four from Samuel's first marriage, and two from their union. In addition, Mary was pregnant again. (Note: In the course of her life, Mary experienced many pregnancies, most of which ended in miscarriage, stillbirth, or infant death. The women of this era certainly had it rough. 😒)

On the morning of June 30, 1860, Samuel and Mary's son Saville - three years and ten months old - was missing from his cot in the nursemaid's room. The nursemaid, Elizabeth Gough, thought Saville's mother Mary had taken the boy, and didn't immediately raise the alarm.


Little Saville Kent

When it became clear that Saville was missing, a frantic search ensued, and servants found the boy's body stuffed down a privy outside the house. Saville had been stabbed and his throat had been cut.

The local police were called, and their investigation revealed that the house had been shut up tight, and the murderer was well-acquainted with the home's layout. Thus the murderer must have been a servant or family member....not a random intruder.


Police in England, circa 1860

In Victorian England the home of respectable people was considered sacrosanct, and this severely hampered police inquiries. The authorities weren't able to search the house properly, and when a woman's soiled chemise (a piece of clothing worn under a corset) was found in the privy, the police only 'fitted' it against servants, not family members.


Example of woman's chemise, circa 1860

These constraints, plus police ineptitude, resulted in no arrests...though the police had their suspicions. The failed investigation raised the ire of the general public. The sensational murder of a child was fodder for newspapers, pamphleteers, and balladeers, and people all across Britain heard about the case.


Balladeers helped spread the news in Victorian England

When a murderer wasn't arrested the population roundly criticized the authorities, and 'armchair detectives' came up with their own theories. Many people wrote letters to magistrates and politicians, calling for Scotland Yard to get involved.


The British public was angered by the Saville Kent case

Finally Scotland Yard Detective-Inspector Jonathan Whicher was sent to Road Hill to re-investigate the murder. Whicher had a stellar reputation as a detective, and was renowned for his previous successes in criminal apprehension. Summerscale provides several anecdotes about Whicher's former cases, which are wide-ranging and interesting.


Detective-Inspector Jack Whicher

Whicher was aware the local cops didn't appreciate his 'interference', but he questioned and re-questioned every person of interest, including family members, servants, the local laundress, neighbors, townsfolk, etc. Whicher also found new evidence, which informed his opinion of the case. In the end, the Kent police and Whicher had different theories of the crime.

- The Kent police surmised that little Saville woke up and found his father Samuel (or some other man) in bed with the nursemaid Elizabeth. The guilty couple, fearing Saville would tattle to his mother, killed the child.


Samuel Kent

- Whicher thought Saville's teenage half-sister Constance killed him, out of resentment against her stepmother Mary. It was well known that Mary Kent - who was originally the children's nanny - had an affair with Samuel before his first wife died. In addition, Mary was MUCH nicer to her own children than to her stepchildren.


Young Constance Kent

There were accusations, arrests, court proceedings, and all manner of rigmarole surrounding the Saville Kent murder, which Summerscale describes in detail. The case severely impacted the people in the Kent household, as well as Detective-Inspector Whicher.

The victim's father Samuel Kent - who was already unpopular because his job involved enforcing child labor laws - was reviled by the public, many of whom thought him guilty. Other residents of the Road Hill house were also scrutinized by the press and public, who watched them, wrote about them, etc.

As for Detective-Inspector Whicher, his 'evidence' didn't hold up against the savvy, sarcastic defense lawyers. This led to vicious remarks from the press and public, and Whicher became a broken disheartened man.

In addition to the Kent murder case, Summerscale provides a picture of Victorian England, which was experiencing industrialization and its concomitant problems, especially child labor. Most people seemed to think child labor was perfectly okay, even desirable, and they resented laws restricting the practice.


Child labor was rampant in Victorian England

The murder of Saville Kent, and the way it was solved, makes a fascinating story. However Summerscale doesn't believe justice was completely done, and she explains why. I found the book well-researched, well-written, and interesting. I also like Summerscale's speculation about the impact of syphilis on the lives of the characters. (Consider this a teaser. 😊)

I'd recommend the book to fans of true crime stories.

Rating: 4 stars

Review of "The Mystery of the Sorrowful Maiden: A Laetitia Rodd Mystery" by Kate Saunders

In this 3rd book in the Laetitia Rodd series, the private detective investigates the death of a thespian. The book works fine as a standalone.

*****

In the mid-19th century Mrs. Laetitia Rodd, needing a source of income after her archdeacon husband dies, becomes a private detective.



Conservative and respectable, Mrs. Rodd wouldn't normally mingle with theatrical people, who rate VERY low on Britain's rigid social scale. However when Mrs. Rodd's neighbor Benjamin Tully, a retired thespian, brings a delicious seed cake and asks Mrs. Rodd to help his actress friend Sarah Transome.....





.....the detective agrees to listen to his request.



Tully explains that his friend Sarah Transome's husband, Thomas Transome, has an acting company to which Tully himself belonged until ten years ago.



At that time the King's Theatre leased by Thomas burned down, and Tully was injured, and subsequently retired from acting. Thomas Transome went on to lease another theatre, and he's now fallen in love with an 18-year-old actress called Constance Noonan.



Transome wants to separate from his wife Sarah, with whom he has three adult daughters, and live with his new love. Tully asks Mrs. Rodd to negotiate a fair settlement between Sarah and Thomas Transome, so the abandoned wife has a nice house and the means to survive.

The three Transome daughters, Maria, Olivia and Cordelia - all of whom are actresses - are divided in their loyalties. The oldest daughter, 27-year-old Maria, married actor Edgar Betterton, the scion of a rival theatrical family - which infuriated her father;



the middle daughter, 24-year-old Olivia went to live with her father;



and the youngest daughter, 19-year-old Cordelia, remained with her mother. All the daughters still compete to go on the stage, which causes some ruckus in the family.



Mrs. Rodd helps to arrange an equitable financial resolution between Sarah and her adulterous husband Thomas Transome - and thinks her job is done - when there's a startling development.

The Transomes' daughter Maria and her husband Edgar are renovating the old King's Theatre that burned down a decade ago. During the repairs a corpse is found beneath the floorboards, and it turns out the murdered man was a member of Transome's theatrical company.



The dead man was thought to have left town after the fire, which was written off as an accident. However, with this new discovery, both the conflagration and the death must be investigated by the police. Police Inspector Blackbeard gets the case and asks his friend (and unofficial colleague) Mrs. Rodd to help with the investigation since she 'can talk' to theatre folk.



Before long there's another murder, and Inspector Blackbeard and Mrs. Rodd run all over London to view bodies, locate witnesses, interview people, and so on. Along the way various scandals are revealed, such as unwed girls becoming pregnant; illicit love affairs; bankruptcies; coerced witnesses; and more. Unfortunately every witness in the case lies, and when caught out, just lies some more.



For me, the endless questioning and requestioning of witnesses by Blackbeard and Mrs. Rodd slowed the story too much and I got bored waiting for a resolution. On the upside, it's interesting to see the mores of 1800s London through the eyes of a respectable widow. Mrs. Rodd contantly frets about girls being 'ruined' by things like love letters; pregnancies; scandalous relatives; etc. This kind of thing could literally leave a girl homeless and starving. Of course social norms have changed considerably since the mid-19th century and it's interesting to contrast then and now.





The mystery part of the book is belabored but compelling, and - though I didn't identify the killer - I sussed out a major plot point. I'd recommend the book to fans of historical mysteries who don't mind a sluggish tale.

I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Sasha Higgins, who does a fine job.

Thanks to Netgalley, Kate Saunders, and Dreamscape Media for a copy of the book.

Rating: 3 stars

Review of "The Invisible Man: A Science Fiction Novel" by H.G. Wells

 

For fun, I decided to revisit this classic to see how it holds up.

The story is about a brilliant but troubled molecular physicist named Griffin who discovers a way to make himself invisible. Griffin then goes on a crime spree, at first just stealing things he needs, like food, clothes, etc. However Griffin's mental health quickly deteriorates, and he becomes a full blown sociopath.

There are some funny parts at the beginning of the book, when Griffin takes a room in a small rural boarding house to continue his experiments. The nosy townsfolk are naturally curious about this man who's all bandaged up and mysterious, so they spy on him, gossip about him, and so on.



Things soon take a dark turn though, when Griffin becomes violent.

At one point Griffin explains his method of becoming invisible to a doctor, a complex rigmarole involving the reflection and refraction of light.



One big fly in the ointment...food Griffin eats is visible until it's digested. (That would be a frightening sight to see. Food meandering down the invisible alimentary tract!!)

Of course Griffin can't wear any clothes if he wants to be completely unseen and this part is very unrealistic. Griffin has to run around completely starkers, without shoes or anything, and I think his privates jostling around would be a problem (among other things). Still, invisibility is a fun idea. The thing to make invisibility REALLY work would be to make anything you hold or wear invisible also.

This story has spawned a whole array of TV series and movies - ranging from serious films to comedies.....and they just keep coming! 💕😊🍀

















The book is a real classic in the sense that it's old-fashioned, but - since it's at the hub of so much literature and entertainment - it's worth reading.

Rating: 3 stars

Review of "The House We Grew Up In: A Domestic Drama" by Lisa Jewell

Lorelei and Colin Bird are raising their four children - Meg, Beth, and twin boys Rory and Rhys - in a charming house in the Cotswalds.

Lorelei's favorite holiday is Easter Sunday, and the Bird house always hosts an Easter egg hunt for the neighborhood children.



When the youngsters eat their chocolate eggs, Lorelei collects the foil that covered them, because the colors are so pretty.



The Easter festivities are so important to Lorelei that she cajoles her children to participate even when they get too old for the fun. Thus, over the years, Lorelei has amassed a large collection of colored foil as well as a great many other things.

The fact is that Lorelei can't throw anything away. She's kept all the drawings her children ever made; dozens of worn out kitchen towels; old chipped bric-a brac; and much more. In addition, Lorelei can't resist buying things she doesn't need. Thus the Cotswold house gets more and more cluttered as the years pass, and the only family member bothered by this seems to be Meg.



There are stresses in the Bird home, but things rub along relatively smoothly until an Easter Sunday when Meg is 20, Beth is 18, and the twins Rory and Rhys are 14. Lorelei hosts her usual Easter egg hunt, there's a nice lunch, then a horrible tragedy upends the day. Easter Sunday will never be the same, and neither will the Bird family.



The book meanders back and forth over a 30-year period, from when Meg is 10, and happily hunting Easter eggs; until Meg is 40, and back home to bury her mother and clean out the house. By now the Bird house is so filled with newspapers, books, and Lorelei's treasures as to be almost completely inpenetrable, like the worst homes on the Hoarders television show.



We follow each of the major characters over the 30-year span of the story: Meg, who's the mature one, meets a man named Bill, has four children, and does well financially;



Attractive Beth becomes a personal assistant, lives with her mother until she's thirty, exhibits bad judgement, and suffers the consequences;



Rory runs off to a Spanish commune with an Irish girl, but has trouble accepting responsibility;



Lorelei separates from Colin, has another relationship, and when she's older, acquires an online boyfriend;



and Colin just mosies along until he has a later-life crisis.



Lorelei is the linchpin of the book and its sad to see one child after another pull away from her, largely because of her behavior, which - in addition to the hoarding - is quite selfish. For example, when Colin tries to plan a wonderful holiday for the family, Lorelei squashes the idea because she can't bear to leave her house.



Towards the end of the book we get an explanation for Lorelei's self-centered conduct, and see her regret for the estrangements she's caused, not only between herself and the children, but between the children themselves - who have little contact with one another. Unfortunately, Lorelei ends up lonely and sick and her death is very sad. But it's an opportunity for the family to come together, and perhaps mend some bonds.

I know hoarding is a mental illness, but Lorelei's explanation is almost logical. She says her 'treasures' form a sort of lattice that preserves important times and events in her mind. (Though one has to wonder how forty pot scrubbers, dozens of packages of hair scrunchies, and hundreds of moldy paperback books fit this explanation.)

The book presents a compelling picture of family dynamics, but (for me) the story moved too slowly; the jumping around in time was hard to follow; and some of Meg's emails to her online boyfriend were cringeworthy. Still, the book got many stellar reviews and readers interested in dysfunctional families might want to give a try.

Rating: 3 stars