Scan barcode
Reviews tagging 'Grief'
The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective by Kate Summerscale
4 reviews
kaanda's review against another edition
dark
informative
mysterious
slow-paced
3.0
The case this book explores is both dark and puzzling. The real life case is told as if it was a detective fiction alike Sherlock. As promising as this format was I personally found the book a bit long and written a bit clunky.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming, Misogyny, Blood, Gore, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Murder, Violence, Grief, Ableism, and Child death
angelfireeast24's review against another edition
dark
informative
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore, Child death, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Sexism, Blood, Bullying, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, and Pregnancy
Minor: Terminal illness, Miscarriage, Animal death, Infidelity, and Domestic abuse
booksnbakes's review against another edition
dark
informative
mysterious
medium-paced
4.75
Excellent, highly detailed and researched. The writing style makes even the most info dump-y sequences easy to read, and I’m very impressed that such factual and impartial writing managed to keep the mystery going until its conclusion.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death and Murder
Moderate: Blood and Grief
Minor: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Infidelity, and Pregnancy
lilifane's review against another edition
dark
informative
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
3.5
I'm torn a little between 3 and 4 stars.
On the one hand the book was very interesting, extremely well researched, I learned a lot! But on the other hand it dragged from time to time because of the huge amount of information that wasn't directly connected to the main topic.
This book is mainly about a true crime that happened in 1850. It's about an actual murder invetigation, about one of the very first real life detectives and about real people involved in one way or another with the case. But it's also a book about fictional detective stories in that time, a genre that was just being created and mostly inpired by this murder case.
As much as I enjoyed the connection to fiction in the beginning, it got a little tedious at some point. There were just too many quotes. I wish there was more focus on the actual investigation instead, but I guess there wasn't much more to be discovered. Because omg the investigation methods back then were shockingly unprofessional.
What I really liked was how the book is structured and the fact that it ctually follows all people involved until their death. It was so interesting to learn what became of everyone afterwards. I get that it's not interesting for readers who only want to know "who dunnit" but for me it brought some kind of closure.
But I didn't enjoy how detailed the other cases Jack Whicher investigated were described.
On the one hand the book was very interesting, extremely well researched, I learned a lot! But on the other hand it dragged from time to time because of the huge amount of information that wasn't directly connected to the main topic.
This book is mainly about a true crime that happened in 1850. It's about an actual murder invetigation, about one of the very first real life detectives and about real people involved in one way or another with the case. But it's also a book about fictional detective stories in that time, a genre that was just being created and mostly inpired by this murder case.
As much as I enjoyed the connection to fiction in the beginning, it got a little tedious at some point. There were just too many quotes. I wish there was more focus on the actual investigation instead, but I guess there wasn't much more to be discovered. Because omg the investigation methods back then were shockingly unprofessional.
What I really liked was how the book is structured and the fact that it ctually follows all people involved until their death. It was so interesting to learn what became of everyone afterwards. I get that it's not interesting for readers who only want to know "who dunnit" but for me it brought some kind of closure.
But I didn't enjoy how detailed the other cases Jack Whicher investigated were described.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Grief, Blood, Death, Medical content, and Murder
More...