Customer Reviews
not quite....... - By: blodwen, 07 Jan 2009 
Sadly,i found this book to be very episodic & padded out to the enth degree.There was never an opportunity to engage with the characters or to feel any kind of emotion for their tragedy.Rather like the detectivein the story i was left feeling rather duped though a little more clued up on English policingin Victorian times.
The suspicions of Mr Whicher - By: Belinda Ball, 06 Jan 2009 
What a huge disappointment this was. From the reviews & 'blurb' I'd imagined I'd be reading a thriller. Not a bit of it, this is a piece of history as painstakingly put together as it is mind numbingly dull to read. As a historical text book, this is fine, as a bedtime story, it is guaranteed to put you to sleep, as a holiday read it is a no no.
I couldn't put it down... - By: Brenda Earle, 05 Jan 2009 
I just finished this book last night & I have to say it is one of those books that you mourn finishing - What will I read now? I love social history but am not so much a historian that I can read straight-up history books although I keep trying. What I loved so much about this book is that the author clearly did painstaking research, not only around the story itself butin researching the social history of that time as it connected to the story being told. It brought Victorian England to life for me & all the charactersin the story also. Add to that the extra flavour of describing the challenges posed to a fledgling role of a detective. I am a huge fan of CSI & was intrigued at the initial stumblings of the science of detection as describedin this book. Would absolutely recommend this book.
murder as social and cultural history - By: Dr. Sn Cottam, 01 Jan 2009 This excellent, readable book explores a number of fascinating strands of mid-Victorian social & cultural history through the story of a real-life child murder. In 1860 a four year old boy, Saville Kent, disappears from his nursery at his father's country housein Road, Wiltshire (now Rode, Somerset) & after a search is found murderedin an outside privy. It didn't need Sherlock Holmes or Fabian of the Yard to work out that the killer was a member of the household. And, as Kate Summerscale so ably demonstrates, Mr Kent's household was not the conventional Victorian happy home & there were any number of emotional & psychological undercurrents. The local police having proved themselves spectacularly incompetant, a detective was sent for from London to try & clear up the case. This was Jonathan Whicher, a member of the newly formed Detective Office at Scotland Yard. Using a strikingly modern approach (looking at means, motive & opportunity plus material evidence) he makes a case & arrests a suspect but provides insufficient evidence to enable the case to proceed to trial. And there the matter seems to end; Whicher leaves the force (with what sounds like depression). Butin a striking denouement, 5 years later an individual comes forward with a confession, & a subsequent guilty plea at trial...
Kate Summerscale has re-examined this famous casein detail & used the tragedy as a launchpad to explore many fascinating byways of mid-Victorian life, from daily life to the development of the police service. In addition, the media interest was (inevitably) frenzied & as Kate Summerscale demonstrates, interest triggered the first forays of English writers into detective & crime fiction. Initially represented by Wilkie Collins' The Womanin White & The Moonstone, the genre continued through the Victorian period culminating with the fantasy figure of Sherlock Holmes, the detective as reasoning machine.
Kate Summerscale rounds off by considering theories of what really did happen that nightin Roadin 1860. The confession satisfied the legal process, but questions still remain. A theory is discussed that seems to answer these questions but of course we will never know for certain. Which makes the tragic mystery both of continuing interest & worthy of the retelling.
The style flows really smoothly & I read the book over a couple of days. The period detail is excellent & well-explained & many of the descriptions (especially about William Kent's scientific work) are vivid & strong. William's pet fern owls sound particularly delightful.
If you are at all interestedin Victorian social history, the development of policingin this country, the origins of detective fiction or historical murder mysteries with details tantalisingly unexplained, read & enjoy this book.
The Suspicions of Mr Whicher - By: Mr. A. Douglas, 31 Dec 2008 Simply, this is a superb book. It is a great detective story (and it is - quite literally - the original detective story) ; it is also a great historical novel; but more than anything it is a great read.
When I picked this book up I simply couldnt put it down & finished it 12 hours or so later. I was entangledin the mystery, I first doubted & then believedin Mr Whicher, & then doubted him again when he failed. The resolution to the story hit me like a classic sucker punch, & then, right at the end another twist that stuck like a punchin the guts.
I cant recomend this book enough. It works as a whodunnit, but its much more. The author charts the history of the detective & provides somehing of a social historyin general while telling the story.
