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

dark informative sad medium-paced

4.5

Read full review: https://www.mwgerard.com/reviews-very-english-murders/

The story of the Crippens never seems to truly fade away. Or if it does, it resurfaces after a brief respite. In some respects, it was so utterly incredible it can barely be believed. In other ways, it has all the elements of classic mystery novel. The characters and motives are so universal they could just as easily appear in an Agatha Christie novel as a Chaucer story (if he had ever decided to dabble in crime writing). Where Erik Larson focused on the fervor of chase and the brilliance of the technology that allowed them to be captured in Thunderstruck, Rubenhold stays closer to the hearth.

Hawley Harvey Crippen was a quack doctor who made money selling “patent” medicines in the late Victorian and early Edwardian period. It was a prodigious time for these “wellness” fads and a rising middle class with at least a little disposable income were caught up in the Victorian obsession with physical health and standards.

How could a civilized, educated, professional man, who lived in a ten-room suburban house with a verdant garden, dismember his spouse’s body and then continue with his ordinary existence, catching the tramcar to his office and attending the theater?  ~Loc. 4490

Crippen married his wife, Cora, whose dream was to become a stage performer. she changed her name to Belle Elmore and enjoyed a decent amount of success in music halls and theatres of turn-of-the-century London. Enter Ethel, the smart, indispensable typist at the office. She quickly became Crippen’s assistant and office manager for his fake patent schemes. The two began an affair.

For a number of years, the arrangement suited the pair, especially as Belle devoted herself even more to performing. But at some point, they wanted to be married and Belle stood in the way. When she “disappeared” after a sudden trip to California, her friends and colleagues immediately suspected Crippen and his mistress knew more than they were saying. Tales of Crippen and Ethel’s escape and trials entranced the reading public for months.

Edwardian newspapers loved a terrifying tale of true crime, and the story of what had been uncovered at 39 Hilldrop Crescent contained all the elements that readers relished. … Their narrative was both sensational and Gothic. It was not simply the dastardly, spine-tingling act of murder and dismemberment that drew public interest, but its characters and scenarios. ~Loc. 4498

Rubenhold reframes the daring crime around the women in Crippen’s life. His first wife Charlotte, who also died unexpectedly, is given her proper place in the story. He was never accused of her death, but looking back on it, it seems unlikely he was entirely innocent of that either. Belle (or Cora) is front and center under the limelight as she would have wanted. She is not merely a body to be found in the basement. She has a lively personality and strident spirit on the page. Crippen underestimated her closeness with fellow performers (at his own peril).

For her part, Ethel is far from just “the mistress.” Whether she knew of Crippen’s plans or helped him commit murder, she certainly helped him avoid authorities, participated in the escape, and refused to answer questions during the trial. She maintained her would always love him, even when the full scope of his deeds were known.

As Rubenhold did in The Five, the victims (and especially) the women, are given a proper place in the story and not just stock characters. She seeks to untangle the truth through newspapers, magazines, court records, and even interviews of Ethel’s grown children.

My thanks to Dutton for the e-galley. Read via NetGalley.

The Peepshow: The Murders at Rillington Place by Kate Summerscale

dark informative sad medium-paced

4.25

Read my full review: https://www.mwgerard.com/reviews-very-english-murders/

In post-war England, just as rations began to ease but neighborhoods were still rebuilding from the Blitz, and the Windrush generation began to populate the suburbs, a gritty, impenetrable fog blanketed London for five days in 1952. By the time it lifted, an estimated 4,000 people died from asthma and heart attacks and road accidents. In the months following another 8,000 people died from lingering health complications. Not included in the death toll were the bodies of murder victims stuffed in the walls of Reg Christie’s flat at Rillington Place.

Notting Hill was not the quirky, desirable neighborhood it is today. It was a cheap, grungy area with sooty row houses divided into apartments. When a tenant attempted to hang a shelf in the tiny kitchen, the wall plaster crumbled and he made an unwelcome discovery. The false wall had been concealing three dead bodies. Police found more in the back garden. But it was reporter Harry Procter who realized that he had been to this location before, when a resident of another apartment in the same building was arrested for killing his wife and baby in the late 1940s. At the time he interviewed Reg Christie, an oddly calm neighbor who was now missing. Procter suspected Tim Evans was the wrong man, caught in 1949, and the real murderer has remained free – and kept killing.

Summerscale walks us through the Christie’s crimes but with a focus on each of the victims. For some, there is little more known than a name and a few biographical details, but with others – like Christie’s own wife – Summerscale has uncovered a wealth of information.

George Stonier of the New Statesman visited North Kensington as dusk was falling on Monday in the spring of 1953. He walked past a nun, in a black-and-white coif and tunic, and a couple of West Indian men ‘with strange gaities of shirt peeing out from raincoats’, before he turned into Rillington Place. There he joined more than twenty bystanders, most of the women, who were watching No 10 in silence from the facing pavement. Every detail of the house seemed sister to him: the cracks in the front door, the shiny patches were its green paint had worn away, the five windows shrouded with curtains. ~Pg. 64

Most interestingly, she stitches in the narratives of Harry Procter and his attempt to clear the name of the wrongly convicted Evans, as well as the writing of Fryn Tennyson Jesse. Herself a prominent journalist, writer, criminologist, and novelist, she attacked the story from a different angle, though no less intense angle as Procter.

Like sensational cases do, this one attracted the attention of notable persons including Robert Sherwood, Terence Rattigan, Margaret Leighton, Christianna Brand, Anthony Berkeley Cox, and Cecil Beaton.

A man sitting next to Cox whispered to him that he had been to every Old Bailey murder trial since that of Dr Crippen, hanged in 1910 for the murder of his wife, and he thought this one unlikely to be very satisfying. ‘There’s no excitement, you see,’ he said. ‘It’s not like not knowing whether he really did it or not; he’s confessed; it’s just his sanity that’s being tried.” ~Pg.150

For Summerscale, the story to be investigated is how the puzzle fits together. There is no mystery to be solved. Rather, it is how did this thing happen? What were the dominoes that had to fall? More importantly, what had to be ignored in order for Christie to get away with it as long as he did.

My thanks to Penguin Press for the advance review copy.

The Hymn to Dionysus by Natasha Pulley

adventurous emotional mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

Full review: https://www.mwgerard.com/review-hymn-dionysus/

Natasha Pulley is one of the best and most consistently stunning novelists of our time. Her Watchmaker trilogy is still my favorite (The Bedlam Stacks in particular), but each of her books manages to find a its own voice while still exploring realms just on the edge of a fantastical world.

The Hymn to Dionysus imagines a world where Greek citizens stood side by side with demigods. Phaidros, the protagonist, grew up trained to be a fierce warrior for his people. Helios, his mentor, protector, and father figure is killed in battle due to Phaidros’s own strategic mistake, one he will never forgive himself for. He dedicates the rest of his life to training other young soldiers and protecting his queen and kingdom.

When a drought threatens the kingdom’s survival, the queen negotiates a trade of grain with the wealthy Egyptians. But this coincides with an event no one can explain. Quakes and fires are side-by-side by priests who repeat a single song in another language. Starving refugees from the even drier countryside arrive, adding to the chaos?  Is it a meteor strike, a dancing plague, a curse from the gods, or the return of the true prince? Are there answers in the oracles, or the massive automatons only the aristocracy can ask? Or perhaps the young, mischievous Dionysus who has just arrived can help Phaidros and his people before the grain stores are empty.

The marvels were like nothing I’d ever seen. The quantity of bronze was madness. it could have supplied a legion of knights with full armour. The quality of engineering too. It could only have been a message from a queen or king. Nobody else could have commanded anything like the wealth to build these things. Whatever they were saying, it had been important to whoever wanted them built. And it was hard not to feel as thought, for all they were saying words we couldn’t understand, this was what you would make if you weren’t building something for now, but for people living a thousand years after your language had been forgotten. That was the only reason to do this, instead of just carving it on the city walls. If you carved it, you expected someone to be able to read it. … Whatever the marvels were saying, thought, it was a warning. You didn’t build twenty screaming Furies and bury them in a cavern for a once-in-twenty-generations drought to uncover if you were saying anything good. ~Pg. 135

Phaidros slowly realizes that Dionysus is connected to the strange happenings. He is causing green things to grow, despite the drought, and people to experience dreamy confusion. As Phaidros begins to understand Dionysus is not like other people – and perhaps something inhuman – he discovers the depth of his own humanity. 

Pulley’s ability to weave reality, history, and fantasy is unmatched. In every book she has written, all of these elements are quietly, perfectly stitched together in such a way as the reader barely realizes the more extraordinary aspects. Just as The Iliad isn’t (really) about the Trojan war, The Hymn to Dionysus is not about an endangered kingdom. It’s about looking at oneself and finding the divine heroism within.

[For Watchmaker fans, Keita Mori doesn’t make an appearance, but the clockwork automatons make one wonder if he hadn’t made a stop in ancient Greece.]

My thanks to Bloomsbury for the review copy.

Whack Job: A History of Axe Murder by Rachel McCarthy James
Did not finish book. Stopped at 9%.

Although I appreciate the concept, I read her earlier book (The Man on the Train) and found its theories poorly researched and flimsy. In some cases, she contradicted herself paragraphs later. I tried to give her another chance with this book, but I couldn't deal with her presentations style and arrogance.

To Catch a Thief by David Dodge

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Full review: https://www.mwgerard.com/wheel-spins-catch-thief/

The film version of To Catch A Thief is known for its sophisticated Riviera scenery, stylish costumes, and a suave but mysterious cat burglar (who may or may not be Cary Grant). It is also how Grace Kelly met Prince Rainier of Monaco, her eventual husband.

John Robie is a retired jewel thief. He’d been caught and jailed before war broke out, but he was released from prison on the eve of the German invasion. Robie joined the French Resistance and after the war law enforcement chose to look the other way. He now lives quietly, on the right side of the law, in a cliffside villa. All is well until a jewel thief begins striking wealthy Riviera tourists using his typical M.O. It becomes clear the thief is a copycat, hoping to get Robie arrested. He is forced underground, with the help of his Resistance friends, while he tries to catch the burglar before the police catch up with him.

It was the kind of a night that LeChat had always liked best; darkness, moving shadows to hide another moving shadow, a rush of wind and the scrape of of rubbing branches to hide small noises. There was a charged, electric feeling in the air. ~Loc. 2581

This film adaptation is fairly faithful to the book although there are some lovely details that are cut. Most notably, Robie disguises himself as a frumpy, potbellied, clueless American (but with the character being played by Cary Grant, can you blame Hitch for not wanting to hide his actor under an ill-fitting suit?). He is undercover while he mixes with the potential marks in hopes he can stop The Cat before he strikes again. The book is a rollicking, fast-moving adventure and is must-read for any Hitchcock fan.

The Wheel Spins by Ethel Lina White

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

Full review: https://www.mwgerard.com/wheel-spins-catch-thief/

The Wheel Spins follows Iris Carr. Snobbish, British, casually flippant, Iris is a young woman on vacation somewhere is a small European village. But her vacation has come to an end and it’s time to begin travelling back home. She tries to avoid the other tourists who are far too friendly for her liking. Miss Froy is a bright young English governess, intent upon spreading manufactured joy no matter the situation. Despite her efforts, she finds she can’t escape the affable Miss Froy.

Did she guess that she was being hurried to some operation — doomed to failure, yet recommended solely as an experiment, to satisfy scientific curiosity? Iris had still sufficient sense to know that she was indulging in neurotic and morbid speculation, so she hurriedly smashed up the sequence of her thoughts. ~ Loc. 1568

But when Miss Froy disappears, and everyone else denies ever seeing her, there is no one Iris wants to talk to more. Iris enlists the help of doubtful fellow passengers, both insisting on her existence and beginning to doubt her own sanity.

Hitchcock’s film version became The Lady Vanishes and it is very much like the book. The movie cast Dame Mae Whitty as Miss Froy, an older woman than her book counterpart, and the final solution of the disappearance is more detailed in the film version. But what remains is the snappy dialogue, self-deprecating humor, and genuine suspense.

The Undoing of Violet Claybourne by Emily Critchley

dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

Full review: https://www.mwgerard.com/review-undoing-violet-claybourne/

The narrator Gillian — known as Gilly — has been shipped off to the typical cold boarding school. Unhappy and lonely, she hasn’t made any friends among the cliquish girls. Then she falls in with Violet Claybourne, a girl even more ostracized than herself. If not endeared exactly, Gilly is fascinated by and protective of Violet. The two reply upon each other for companionship. As Christmas break approaches, Violet invites Gilly to come stay with her and meet her family. Gilly has heard stories about these sisters, and the manor house, and agrees.

Gilly is unprepared for the impenetrable tensions between the various family members. The Violet’s sisters barely tolerate Violet and her weird repetitive habits. They quickly begin to cannibalize her friendship with Gilly. The parents only vaguely acknowledge Violet, giving her up as a lost cause. Instead they focus on the other sisters who have any chance of landing a rich husband who can save their failing estate.

Then, early this morning we’d woken to find the park covered in a thick white blanket. The Claybournes had exchanged Christmas gifts after breakfast, mostly cashmere and crystalized fruits. There was a box of fruit for me too. Although the food had plentiful the atmosphere at lunch had been strained. Emmeline and Laura were still clearly put out about not being allowed to take part in the Boxing Day fox hunt. ~Loc. 1629

All of their careful plans are thrown into a panic when someone is shot on the day of the hunt. Coverups abound, as do false accusations. Gilly, the narrator and our guide in this strange world, will see the genteel facade fall away quickly. She will have to decide where her loyalty lies.

Set in 1938 England, the story is steeped in the very particular interwar setting, with dozens of connotations. Crucially, it’s the year Rebecca was written (and set). Like the classic Du Maurier novel, this book focuses on a shabby manor house, a young woman who struggles to fit in, and a crumbling aristocracy intent on covering up dark secrets. It also displays shades of I Capture the Castle and Atonement.

Those books have become classics because there is something imperfectly, dreadfully human about the main characters. The sisters are well-drawn and vivid, but I’m not sure Violet Claybourne quite seizes upon the aspects of its predecessors. I wasn’t yelling at them in my head, like I was with the second Mrs. de Winter. I didn’t ache for Violet like I did for Cassandra.

Still, it is a compelling narrative, well worth the reading. Critchley aptly evokes the very particular place, time, and class that these strange characters inhabit. One can imagine them in a loop, repeating their mistakes for all time in some liminal space where it is always 1938.

My thanks to Sourcebooks for the review copy. Read via NetGalley

Publisher: ‎Sourcebooks Landmark (March 4, 2025)
Language: ‎English
Paperback: ‎400 pages
ISBN-10: ‎1728287197

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Gun violence

The Sinners All Bow: Two Authors, One Murder, and the Real Hester Prynne by Kate Winkler Dawson

challenging informative mysterious medium-paced

4.5

Full review: https://www.mwgerard.com/review-sinners-all-bow/

On a freezing morning in December 1832, a woman named Sarah Maria Cornell was found dead on a local farm - but was it murder, or suicide?

The farm owner, John Durfee, didn't recognize her. She was one of many itinerant mill workers who were largely anonymous and interchangeable in northeast America's industrial revolution. Thousands of people, many of them women, who would have been relegated to farm- and housework in or near their hometown were now travelling to mill towns springing up along rivers in New England. While it offered a modicum of independence, it was hardly a glamorous life. Wages were meager, hours were long, machinery was dangerous, and the living conditions afforded by the salary were humble. Still, it was an option for widows, or other women that had few choices. and it hadn't existed 20 years previously.

Sarah was one of these mill workers and when the townspeople began to look into her death, they found a number of tantalizing clues. She had kept letters in a locked trunk. It became clear that she attended a number of Methodist revival camps and was carrying on a secret correspondence with a Reverend Avery.

Author Kate Winkler Dawson has an incredible talent for finding mysteries and laying them out (see my review of American Sherlock). The reason this case, is particularly intriguing is that Dawson is not the first true crime writer to try to find answers. That title belongs to Catharine Read Arnold Williams, who covered the trial, then interviewed witnesses, and visited locations, including the Durfee Farm (at night, so it would be as similar to the crime's setting as possible). An outspoken supporter of women's suffrage and a woman who left her dreadful husband, she published Fall River in 1833, just months after Cornell was found. She noted that this small town was curiously afflicted with gruesome murder, citing the infamous Borden killings. As well as being the first published American true crime narrative, Williams' account is often credited as the inspiration for Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.

The Impostor Heiress: Cassie Chadwick, The Greatest Grifter of the Gilded Age by Annie Reed

adventurous informative medium-paced

4.5

Buried Alive: A History of Premature Burials and Accidental Interments by Aj Griffiths-Jones

slow-paced

1.0

It was a great idea for a book but very poorly executed. There are no stories, no themes, no real historical context. It is a collection of random examples of accidental burials (or close calls). Most are only a couple of sentences long. This needed a serious editor to encourage the author to categorize and contextualize the examples, and show them how to choose stories that have real through-lines and can be explored.