A review by izzalice
Story of a Murder: The Wives, the Mistress, and Dr. Crippen by Hallie Rubenhold

5.0

Thank you to Penguin for sending me an arc!

“The fear of the empowered woman certainly did not fade with the advance of the twentieth century, and with a handful of more recent exceptions, Filson Young’s tale of Monstrous Belle and the tragic Crippen continues to persist, weaving its presence into twenty-first century examinations of the case.” 

The murder of Belle Elmore in 1910 is one of the most infamous true crime cases of the twentieth century and it has always been told as a killer’s tale. In Story of a Murder, Hallie Rubenhold expertly reconstructs the narrative to focus not just on Belle, but the women who fought tirelessly for justice. It also takes a wide angled lens on the Edwardian world, and what among its values we still mistakenly cling to. 

Story of a Murder is a fantastically written, incredibly well researched piece of history that thoroughly gripped me. Hallie Rubenhold presents in-depth biographies of not just Belle, t turning journalist narratives about her around, but biographies of Crippen’s first wife, Charlotte who mysteriously passed away, Crippen himself as he becomes enmeshed with shady medical practises and scams (and consequently how he uses these things to his advantage later on), and finally Ethel Le Neve, Crippen’s mistress who may have played a much more vital role in Belle’s disappearance than you’d be lead to believe. 

The Five by Hallie Rubenhold (a biography of the women killed by Jack the Ripper) is one of my favourite non-fiction books of all time so I knew I was also going to love Story of a Murder too. This is not just a history of a true crime case, this is a history of a period in time. A brilliant read that I highly recommend.