The Suspicions Of Mr Whicher: Kate Summerscale

[poliphilo]

Jonathan Whicher was the real life prototype of a certain kind of salt-of-the earth fictional detective- Cluff, Maigret, Wexford, Gideon of the Yard- and in the Road Hill House murder case he found himself investigating the prototype of the classic English country house mystery.  When a crime gets hold of the public imagination as this one did it's because there's something about it that touches a nerve- possibly several. The Suspicions of Mr Whicher gets under the surface of what is already a compelling story and gives us a wide-ranging view of the values, anxieties and snobberies of the high Victorian age.