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3.7 AVERAGE
3.7 AVERAGE
dark
informative
reflective
medium-paced
The Peepshow:The Murders at 10 Rillington Place is a meticulously researched true crime narrative, which follows the investigation and trial following the discovery of four women's bodies plus more human remains in a Notting Hill boarding house in 1952. Just three years earlier, a woman and her child were killed there; her husband later convicted and hanged. Were there two murderers living in the same house, or was there a miscarriage of justice? And if so, what contributed to that? I would have liked this book to focus more on the women victims and less on the male killer. On the other hand, I appreciated the way the author tied the case to social conditions and attitudes at the time. She excelled at portraying the dark, gritty reality of London at the time; the blatant racism was particularly confronting . Poverty and misogyny clearly contributed to these crimes, while the illegality of abortion and the prejudice against sex workers played into the killer's hands. I wasn't familiar with the case before I read the book. This may be a good thing - many reviewers felt it offered nothing new - but it also meant I lacked any particular interest in or connection to it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Rape, Murder
Moderate: Misogyny, Abortion
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
Definitely reading outside my genre!
dark
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Non fiction books aren’t for me. If you liked non fiction this was good, very well researched.
slow-paced
Honestly, this was too much. I guess if you love true crime then this level of detail is great but the asides into the lives of peripheral people got too much for me. It was also a lot of words to convey that Reg Christie was a vile, insidious man and that there is a culture of violence against women that's propped up and supported by the media.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Racism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Murder
Minor: Animal death
challenging
dark
informative
sad
tense
slow-paced
I was looking forward to this being my non-fiction of the month but was largely disappointed. The narrative was all over the place, it jumps from person to person and story to story with little to no sense. I also am baffled by the sheer amount of detail about an author (Frynn? I think) but only a few paragraphs for each woman who Reg Christie murdered. There was almost no substance to the author's words and she seemed to veer off on tangents in order to make a point that was either irrelevant or over explained. I only finished this to find out if Reg would get away with it, luckily he didn't but aside from that this book was very underwhelming and entirely too long.
An incredibly engrossing read, this was a book I only recently discovered but it is a subject I have been interested in for a long time, since I saw the movie as a teenager. The book follows the trial of the British serial killer John Christie, a man who murdered several women and kept their bodies at his home and garden at 10 Rillington Place. A double whammy being that his upstairs neighbour Timothy Evans was three years earlier tried and hanged for the murder of his wife and daughter. Was Christie guilty of those murders too? That is what this book discusses via the word of writers and journalists of the time, most notably Harry Proctor who was one of the great figures of his day.
The book follows Harry through the Christie trial as feeling misled in 1949 he tries to get Christie to admit to the murders of Beryl and Geraldine Evans, and as a journalist feeling responsible for the potential wrongful conviction of Timothy Evans.
It is very harrowing read and no details left out in the examination of the facts and evidence. I truly believe that Christie did indeed kill the Evans mother and daughter. A botched abortion or excuse to satisfy his fetish of gassing, strangling and necrophiliac rape. The baby being collateral and to silence rumours. Timothy Evans being a naive uneducated man confessed in the moment led on by assurances from Christie.
Christie was rotten from the start and a serial molester and depraved man. A murderer already before the Evans murders. All the facts are clear to see that a massive miscarriage of justice one that was led to stand with evidence and facts withheld until 1992 when the files were made public.
It is a fascinating study in British history and I have no doubts Christie is one of the biggest villians in British history and deservedly so alongside Jack The Ripper. The death penalty existed for animals like him. A man who took advantage of the weak and vulnerable women he befriended.
The book is excellent and one I would highly recommend and afterwards take a deep dive into the case. It is an eye-opening thing and how he got away with it for so long. The facts were there to be found like a human thigh bone propping up a fence, the stench of decay with the bodies hidden under the floor and in alcoves, the fact he was an illegal abortionist.
The case also has spawned an excellent movie from the 1970s 10 Rillington Place starring Richard Attenborough, John Hurt and Judith Geeson. As well as a 2016 television series Rillington Place starring Tim Roth.
This book is a superb study of not just the case but a social history of Britain and London in the early 1950s.
https://valleyreading.uk/2025/03/06/the-peepshow-the-murders-at-10-rillington-place-by-kate-summerscale/
The book follows Harry through the Christie trial as feeling misled in 1949 he tries to get Christie to admit to the murders of Beryl and Geraldine Evans, and as a journalist feeling responsible for the potential wrongful conviction of Timothy Evans.
It is very harrowing read and no details left out in the examination of the facts and evidence. I truly believe that Christie did indeed kill the Evans mother and daughter. A botched abortion or excuse to satisfy his fetish of gassing, strangling and necrophiliac rape. The baby being collateral and to silence rumours. Timothy Evans being a naive uneducated man confessed in the moment led on by assurances from Christie.
Christie was rotten from the start and a serial molester and depraved man. A murderer already before the Evans murders. All the facts are clear to see that a massive miscarriage of justice one that was led to stand with evidence and facts withheld until 1992 when the files were made public.
It is a fascinating study in British history and I have no doubts Christie is one of the biggest villians in British history and deservedly so alongside Jack The Ripper. The death penalty existed for animals like him. A man who took advantage of the weak and vulnerable women he befriended.
The book is excellent and one I would highly recommend and afterwards take a deep dive into the case. It is an eye-opening thing and how he got away with it for so long. The facts were there to be found like a human thigh bone propping up a fence, the stench of decay with the bodies hidden under the floor and in alcoves, the fact he was an illegal abortionist.
The case also has spawned an excellent movie from the 1970s 10 Rillington Place starring Richard Attenborough, John Hurt and Judith Geeson. As well as a 2016 television series Rillington Place starring Tim Roth.
This book is a superb study of not just the case but a social history of Britain and London in the early 1950s.
https://valleyreading.uk/2025/03/06/the-peepshow-the-murders-at-10-rillington-place-by-kate-summerscale/
dark
informative
sad
medium-paced
