The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective
by Kate Summerscale
List Price:
Our Price: $9.82
You Save: $15.13 (61%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $6.20 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Kate SummerscaleEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2008-04-15
ISBN: 0802715354
Number of pages: 384
Publisher: Walker & Company
Book Reviews of The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective
Book Review: Victorian Murder Investigations, Public Attitudes, and the Birth of Detective Fiction
Summary: 4 Stars
If you are fascinated by the hypocrisy of the Victorians, you'll love this book. If you want to read a great murder mystery, you should probably search out a work of fiction instead.
The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher has a wide charter: Tell the story of the murder of three-year-old Saville Kent in his English country home, describe the police investigations, relate the public reaction to the murder and investigations, detail what happened to the characters, help us understand our psychological need to read detective fiction, and provide new insight into the seeds of the crime.
Although the book claims to give us a fiction-like description of the murder and its investigation, Ms. Summerscale's writing isn't quite in the style: She's clearly a non-fiction writer. She's also not very careful of the facts: There's a glaring example in her "A Note on Money" that precedes the Prologue. In the first paragraph she tells us a pound is worth $130 today and in the second paragraph she tells us that a hundred pounds is worth $120,000 today (Yes, she made two mistakes!).
For my taste the book could have been edited down quite a bit. There was about 150 pages worth of material I was interested in within 300 pages of text. She presumes that I want to know more about Victorian authors of detective fiction than I do, and I could have used a much shorter version of what happened next to everyone.
I thought that the two most interesting parts of the book were how modern the analytical methods were that Whicher used (opportunity, motive, and a search for missing clothing) and the commentary on how much we want our detectives to be supermen who always find the criminal (making us feel more secure while allowing us to be moved by the passion behind crime) rather than thinking about the victim.
As for the speculation about the possible seeds of the crime, I thought that the medical parts of that were pretty speculative. The other parts seem more plausible and should have been exposed earlier in the book.
More The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective reviews:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Newest Review
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Newest Review
Biographies & Memoirs Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Audiobooks on Cassette
- Audiobooks on CD
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- e-Books
- Engineering
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Medicine
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Books I started but didn't finish in 2008
The F-Word: Feminism In Jeopardy - Women, Politics and the Futureby Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner
Seal Press; Published: 2004-07-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.78
Price in other shops:
Feminist Theory: From Margin to Centerby bell hooks
South End Press; Published: 2000-05-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.13
Price in other shops:
Slaughterhouse-Five: A Novelby Kurt Vonnegut
Dial Press Trade Paperback; Published: 1999-01-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.67
Price in other shops:
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinkingby Malcolm Gladwell
Back Bay Books; Published: 2007-04-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.83
Price in other shops:
Drownby Junot D?az
Riverhead Trade; Published: 1997-07-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.48
Price in other shops:
The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detectiveby Kate Summerscale
Walker & Company; Published: 2008-04-15; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $6.48
Price in other shops:
The Colony: The Harrowing True Story of the Exiles of Molokaiby John Tayman
Scribner; Published: 2007-01-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.85
Price in other shops:
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Geniusby Dave Eggers
Vintage; Published: 2001-02-13; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.90
Price in other shops:
Similar books summaries and other product reviews
Lush Life: A Novelby Richard Price
Picador; Published: 2009-03-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.37
Price in other shops:
American Eve: Evelyn Nesbit, Stanford White: The Birth of the "It" Girl and the Crime of the Centuryby Paula Uruburu
Riverhead Hardcover; Published: 2008-05-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $8.77
Price in other shops:
Careless in Red (Inspector Lynley)by Elizabeth George
Harper; Published: 2009-05-01; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.85
Price in other shops:
Murder of a Medici Princessby Caroline P. Murphy
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2009-05-18; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.07
Price in other shops:
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Random House Reader's Circle)by Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows
Dial Press Trade Paperback; Published: 2009-05-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.15
Price in other shops:
Child 44by Tom Rob Smith
Grand Central Publishing; Published: 2008-04-29; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $10.00
Price in other shops:
The Private Patient (Adam Dalgliesh Mysteries)by P.D. James
Knopf; Published: 2008-11-18; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $6.75
Price in other shops:
The Anatomy of Deceptionby Lawrence Goldstone
Delta; Published: 2009-02-24; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.97
Price in other shops:
The Girl with the Dragon Tattooby Stieg Larsson
Knopf; Published: 2008-09-16; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $13.75
Price in other shops:
The Monster of Florenceby Douglas Preston
Grand Central Publishing; Published: 2008-06-10; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $6.98
Price in other shops: