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joyreadsinnc's review against another edition
4.0
Interesting look at detective work before forensics and current technologies. Also, it gives a look into affluent families of the time period.
jimbowen0306's review against another edition
3.0
I've read this book a couple of times now, and it still doesn't grab me, if I'm honest. This book is about the death of a child in Road Hill House, From the start it looked like a member of middle-classed Victorian family was involved in the murder of said child (it is viewed now as contributing to the start of Agatha Christie style stories). The death, and resulting investigation, caused something of a societal panic at the time, with people expressing the concern about the direction that middle-class society was headed after the murder was made public.
After 2 weeks of local investigation, a London detective (Mr Whicher) was brought in. He does what he could to solve the case, but given he's viewed as both a guy “from off”, and as a "man from the lower orders, investigating the middle class", and he… does his best? Couple this with the fact he doesn't have any form of forensic support, he does his best, he was always going to struggle to solve the case. Some of the book looks at that particular dynamic.
The rest of the book looks at how the case, and Whicher in particular, impacted detective fiction in the UK. Summerscale argues there wasn't the "Agatha Chrsitie style country house murder", nor the "brilliant detective" (a-la Sherlock Holmes) before this murder occurred, and she argues that the murder resulted in both being developed.
So if you're interested in this sort of thing, you'll probably like this book. It didn't really grab me, so I was probably more "Ummm no", as I read this book.
After 2 weeks of local investigation, a London detective (Mr Whicher) was brought in. He does what he could to solve the case, but given he's viewed as both a guy “from off”, and as a "man from the lower orders, investigating the middle class", and he… does his best? Couple this with the fact he doesn't have any form of forensic support, he does his best, he was always going to struggle to solve the case. Some of the book looks at that particular dynamic.
The rest of the book looks at how the case, and Whicher in particular, impacted detective fiction in the UK. Summerscale argues there wasn't the "Agatha Chrsitie style country house murder", nor the "brilliant detective" (a-la Sherlock Holmes) before this murder occurred, and she argues that the murder resulted in both being developed.
So if you're interested in this sort of thing, you'll probably like this book. It didn't really grab me, so I was probably more "Ummm no", as I read this book.
testaroscia's review against another edition
2.0
Either oversold by the PR department or miss categorized. It is a very competent but rather scholastic and somewhat dry laying out of a milestone true life crime in the mid 19th century, the involvement and evolving of a new branch of Policing called "Detectives" and the falling in love of a nation with Crime, fictional and not. Author does a very thourough job on the crime itself, even too much so, a competent laying out of Scotland Yard's detective branch birth and early evolution, but somewhat lacking in tying it all into a bigger discussion on how it struck a nerve wit the nation.I'm afraid when it came to assigning starts "It was OK" was about right
emeraldgarnet's review against another edition
4.0
This is an engrossing read, particularly as a grew up nearby. At times, the book felt like it meandered into other areas but it was good overall.
gracefullypunk's review against another edition
2.0
If I'd wanted to read long excerpts from Dickens, Poe, and others who formed the impression of the fictional detective, I'd probably have picked up those classics. And if I wanted to read direct quotes from contemporary news accounts, I'd likely have done the research myself. This felt less like a book than like a collection of notes for a dissertation, strung together with unnecessary details of life in Victorian England. I love a good microhistory, but this didn't go far enough to be entered into that category. It straddles the line between microhistory and crime reporting, between a school paper and a tedious retelling. It's included as a must-read for fans of true crime, but unless Victorian England and/or Dickens is your thing, it can be avoided.
angus_mckeogh's review against another edition
2.0
Another one of those disappointments probably based around my overly high expectations. I love historical mystery and stories. I find detection and true crime pretty engaging. But I guess this book just had elements of all of these but none of them were in depth and fleshed out. It ended up being much more about the Detective Whicher as opposed to the crime that was being solved. And with a fairly extensive lack of forensics most of his suppositions were based on guesswork and the "physical attributes of a criminal" which was not that interesting. Sort of like reading a book about phrenology. No basis in fact and the background not so intriguing.
cinchona's review against another edition
3.0
This book had a fascinating murder and compelling characters at its heart, but so much extraneous material! None of it was completely uninteresting, but all together the details veered in so many different directions that it was hard to keep track. I think maybe if it were tightened up a bit, it would read more like an actual mystery, and drive more successfully toward the ending.