Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.4 AVERAGE
3.4 AVERAGE
dark
dark
emotional
informative
medium-paced
dark
informative
mysterious
medium-paced
The murder was interesting but there is 2/3 of the book left after the author tells what happened. So I bailed. I wasn’t interested in the decades after the murder.
adventurous
dark
informative
inspiring
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
A tale of unexpected redemption and love, The Wicked Boy shows a life begun in distress in a poor and polluted industrial area, tempered in an asylum and in war, and mellowed in the peacefulness of farm work. The author keeps the matricide in the context of late Victorian England and its ideas of adolescence, family, class, crime, and insanity.
This is the second of Kate Summerscale's books I've read, the first - The Suspicions of Mr Whicher - is as well-researched as this. She shows a boy growing up with an emotional mother, a timid younger brother, and a mostly absent seaman father. In this atmosphere of oppression, where all he wants is to escape to have adventures like those in his favorite magazines, it's not altogether surprising that 13-year-old Robert Coombes chose to kill his mother to protect his brother and have a bit of freedom. (Well, yes, it is surprising, but it makes some sense in Summerscale's telling.)
I found the post-murder sections on Broadmoor, the asylum for the criminally insane, and WWl to be the most compelling. Broadmoor taught Robert how to live among others and to learn a trade, and the war taught him to be a man. After the war. he settled in a small Australian town and worked his plot of vegetables and milked his cows. He gave neighborhood children music lessons, played the cornet in veterans' parades, and offered protection to a teenage neighbor to save him from a violent stepfather. The murder itself was appalling but the subsequent fifty-plus years are the real story.
Highly recommended for people interested in true crime and Victorian London.
This is the second of Kate Summerscale's books I've read, the first - The Suspicions of Mr Whicher - is as well-researched as this. She shows a boy growing up with an emotional mother, a timid younger brother, and a mostly absent seaman father. In this atmosphere of oppression, where all he wants is to escape to have adventures like those in his favorite magazines, it's not altogether surprising that 13-year-old Robert Coombes chose to kill his mother to protect his brother and have a bit of freedom. (Well, yes, it is surprising, but it makes some sense in Summerscale's telling.)
I found the post-murder sections on Broadmoor, the asylum for the criminally insane, and WWl to be the most compelling. Broadmoor taught Robert how to live among others and to learn a trade, and the war taught him to be a man. After the war. he settled in a small Australian town and worked his plot of vegetables and milked his cows. He gave neighborhood children music lessons, played the cornet in veterans' parades, and offered protection to a teenage neighbor to save him from a violent stepfather. The murder itself was appalling but the subsequent fifty-plus years are the real story.
Highly recommended for people interested in true crime and Victorian London.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gore, Mental illness, Violence, Blood, Murder, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism
I won an Arc of this novel through Penguin's First to Read program.
In July 1895 an 11 year old commits matricide. The press blames education and penny dreadfuls. How the trial, and the rest of Robert Coombes' life shakes out... is unexpected.
I enjoyed this. Mainly a biography, partially an examination of British society/murder/insanity around the turn of the century. I expected it to be dull and dry like other historical examinations tend to be, but actually this novel was very interesting. I have no idea who I would recommend it to, but I would certainly recommend it!
In July 1895 an 11 year old commits matricide. The press blames education and penny dreadfuls. How the trial, and the rest of Robert Coombes' life shakes out... is unexpected.
I enjoyed this. Mainly a biography, partially an examination of British society/murder/insanity around the turn of the century. I expected it to be dull and dry like other historical examinations tend to be, but actually this novel was very interesting. I have no idea who I would recommend it to, but I would certainly recommend it!
This was really good. I got a bit bogged down with some of the psychological stuff, but the info on prison and penny dreadfuls was really interesting. I also really enjoyed the epilogue.
In East London in the summer of 1895 13-year-old Robert Coombes murdered his mother. His guilt was never in question, and he never denied the charges when the death was eventually discovered. For ten days after the murder, his mother's body lay rotting in the summer heat in an upstairs bedroom, whilst Robert, his younger brother Nattie and a simple-minded colleague of his father's whom Robert conned into taking care of the boys in their mother's 'absence', went to watch cricket at Lord's, to the seaside, coffee shops and the park, played cards and other games. Family members soon grew suspicious, and the crime was eventually uncovered. To say more of the events that took place would spoil readers' enjoyment, no doubt, so I will refrain, and simply say that only the first half of this book concerns the murder and Robert's trial.
Child murderers are always of interest - the dichotomy between such an abhorrent act and the perceived 'innocence' of childhood, no doubt - and a young boy who kills his mother and then acts with such cool unconcern in the aftermath all the more so. Yet I found this book disappointing, for all that. I've read and thoroughly enjoyed both of Kate Summerscale's previous books, 'The Suspicions of Mr Whicher' and 'Mrs Robinson's Disgrace', but this one seems to lack depth in comparison. It felt very cursory, degenerating on many pages to little more than a 'he said/they said/he said' recitation of the trial records. At no point did I ever feel enthralled in the tale and none of the personalities involved ever felt more than potted characters on the page.
Perhaps that was because there was no 'whodunnit' aspect to the case; perhaps because the trial lawyers never sought to determine Robert's motive; perhaps because there is no extant record of Robert's thoughts, impulses or feelings after the trial or throughout his subsequent life - whatever the reason, Robert himself remained very much a cipher in these pages, impossible to understand or empathise with. As I said, at no point reading this book did I ever feel that there was any depth to the words on the page - it read as very much a 'this happened and then that happened and then he said this and she said that', and quite frankly I got bored. It took me less than a day to read this book, not because I was unable to put it down, but because it was such a light, cursory read it took no time at all to rattle through. I can only hope Kate Summerscale's next book reflects 'The Suspicions of Mr Whicher' or 'Mrs Robinson's Disgrace', and not this one.
Child murderers are always of interest - the dichotomy between such an abhorrent act and the perceived 'innocence' of childhood, no doubt - and a young boy who kills his mother and then acts with such cool unconcern in the aftermath all the more so. Yet I found this book disappointing, for all that. I've read and thoroughly enjoyed both of Kate Summerscale's previous books, 'The Suspicions of Mr Whicher' and 'Mrs Robinson's Disgrace', but this one seems to lack depth in comparison. It felt very cursory, degenerating on many pages to little more than a 'he said/they said/he said' recitation of the trial records. At no point did I ever feel enthralled in the tale and none of the personalities involved ever felt more than potted characters on the page.
Perhaps that was because there was no 'whodunnit' aspect to the case; perhaps because the trial lawyers never sought to determine Robert's motive; perhaps because there is no extant record of Robert's thoughts, impulses or feelings after the trial or throughout his subsequent life - whatever the reason, Robert himself remained very much a cipher in these pages, impossible to understand or empathise with. As I said, at no point reading this book did I ever feel that there was any depth to the words on the page - it read as very much a 'this happened and then that happened and then he said this and she said that', and quite frankly I got bored. It took me less than a day to read this book, not because I was unable to put it down, but because it was such a light, cursory read it took no time at all to rattle through. I can only hope Kate Summerscale's next book reflects 'The Suspicions of Mr Whicher' or 'Mrs Robinson's Disgrace', and not this one.
I received an ARC of this book. I don't know how to feel about it. Bottom line is I don't think it was an interesting enough story. It's the story of a crime but that's it. What happens after isn't enough to fill a book. The text was written very choppy- almost like a very long newspaper article without much narrative.
Wickedly well researched Victorian time capsule. Kate Summerscale should teach a master class on historical true crime.