Review Summaries

• Readers appreciate how the book goes beyond reconstruction of the crime to explore public reaction and class feeling. Its quiet style also leads some to read it more as cultural history than as suspense.

Reviews

• A True Story

  This is a story based on a true family tragety of the 19th century England, well documented and very well written.I was not able to put it down until I read it through, a rare phnomenon at my age of 70 plus something. If you are a littel tired of those fast-paced contemporary mysteries, try this book. You will experience a slow and quiet reading time of your own.

• 力作ミステリー

  朝日新聞のGlobeの“世界のベストセラー”の書評を読んで手にしたのですが、力作ミステリーです。 英国十九世紀中ごろ（ビクトリア朝）の幼児殺人事件を基にしたミステリーですが、詳細な記述の中には、 当時の社会、文化も取り上げられていて（関係者の写真や関連地図も丁寧に掲載され、貨幣の価値の比較までありますよ！） 単なる“本格派ミステリー”を越えていて、実に読みごたえがあります（実は現在全体の三分の一程度しか読んでいないのですが…）。

• Enjoy it as a When-dunnit not a Who-dunnit

  Sometimes books can become the victims of their own hype, and judging from many of the Amazon reviews this may be the case for this one. On the book's publication, many critics were so struck by the meticulous retelling of the extraordinary crime at Road Hill House that they wrote about it as if the book was a crime novel. As a crime novel it is sure to disappoint. But as a history book it wont. Be under no illusion: this is a history book. Although Summerscale's starting point is the horrific and puzzling murder of a young child within an apparently respectable Victorian middle class home, she uses the case as a entry point to far bigger and broader themes. Summerscale is in fact writing a history of the emergence in Victorian England of the detective, and with it of detective fiction; and such was the notoriety of the crime at Road Hill House that it played a material role in both. Along the way Summerscale paints a vivid picture of everyday life in mid-Victorian England - of a society obsessed with what could creep into the fissures between the public and the private, the rich and the poor, the upstairs and the downstairs. Fuelled by a press no less sensationalist and unscrupulous than we have today, this was when Britain developed its conflicted and confused appetite for tales of sex, horror and hubris. I once taught nineteenth century social history at University, and had this book been around then, I would not have hesitated to recommend it to my students: it's not only highly readable, it's academically very sound. Summerscale's style is straightforward and direct. But that simplicity masks a staggeringly complex interweaving of themes and narratives. She rarely puts a foot wrong. She may perhaps sometimes spend too long on the correspondence received by the regional press; and the middle third of the book does sag a little under the weight of historical detail. But overall she judges brilliantly the points at which she can dip out from the central narrative, and the duration of those digressions. Summerscale even has the self-confidence to mimic the overarching structure of the classic crime novel - and it is in this sense that the book is like fiction, rather than in its writing style. Such a structure of course requires a twist. And though in that sagging central section the reader begins to doubt that twist will come - rest assured, it does. This may not be the unputdownable book some readers hope for. But it is still a delight to pick up. Sometimes truth can be stronger than fiction.

• Enthralling examination of a sensational Victorian murder

  "The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher" is a thoroughly engrossing examination of the Road Hill House murder in 1860. Class and gender distinctions bedeviled the case to such a degree that the primary suspect was deemed innocent because of those considerations. Only when the murderer eventually confessed to the crime was the murder eventually explained. I highly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in history, crime and the Victorian sensibility.

• A very nice edition of a very well writren and researched book

  A very good edition of a very well writen and thoroughly researched book. I greatly enjoyed reading this account of the murder investigation run by the clever and unlucky Mr Whicher, member of the first London detectives team. The book is complete with very interesting pictures. A thoroughly researched account of a murder investigation in Victorian England. A very enjoyable read.

• Das Verbrechen im Zeitalter seiner analytischen Rekonstruierbarkeit

  Kate Summerscales Buch über einen wahren Mordfall aus dem Jahr 1860 und dessen Auswirkungen auf die damalige englische Gesellschaft ist vieles: eine Dokumentation, eine spannende Rekonstruktion eines Mordfalls und insbesondere eine kenntnisreiche und kreative Studie über die Faszination am Verbrechen und die gesellschaftliche Funktion des Detektivs in der Viktorianischen Epoche. Der Stil des Buches ist beizeiten dröge, die Sprache durch viele Zitate aus Büchern, Presseberichten und polizeilichen Akten mitunter gestelzt, weil eben alt, aber gerade dieser Tonfall macht den Reiz aus, den das Buch hat. Summerscale jongliert mit den Fakten, sie reibt Theorien über den brutalen Mord an dem dreijährigen Francis Saville Kent, die öffentliche und sensationslüsterne Berichtserstattung und das Echo, welches der Fall insbesondere in der damals knospenden Detektiv-Literatur fand, experimentierfreudig aneinander und kreiert dadurch ein lärmendes, überzeugendes Panorama jener rastlosen Wochen und Monate, in denen Heerscharen von wohlmeinenden, aber allzu unfähigen Ermittlern, Nachbarn und Freunden durch das Haus der Kents in Road liefen und die schreckliche, die Volksseele Englands verunsichernde Tat zu erhellen versuchten. Inmitten dieses Durcheinanders platziert Summerscale ihren Titelhelden, Jack Whicher, jenen nach ihrer Interpretation ersten großen Detective von Scotland Yard, einen Mann, in dem sich Wagemut, Scharfsinn und Instinkt zu einer formidablen Mischung verbanden und der doch von dem Hype, den der Mord an dem Kent-Jungen und seinem "unanständigen" Verdacht, der ebenfalls den Titel des Buches ziert, fast zugrunde gerichtet wurde. Der Bericht Summerscales neigt gelegentlich zur Wiederholung bereits präsentierter Fakten, die Fülle der in die Angelegenheit als mögliche Täter, als Zeugen, Ermittler, Strafverfolger, selbsternannte Meinungsführer und anderweitig von dem Fall faszinierte Zeitgenossen verstrickten Personen lässt zudem mitunter den Kopf schwirren, aber letztlich tritt nur eine Handvoll von Figuren im Auge dieses hyperventilierenden Orkans öffentlicher Meinungen zusammen. Der Detektiv und die Hausgemeinschaft der Kents, aus der - wie bald klar wird - der Mörder stammen muss. In der Conclusio ihres Buches stellt Kate Summerscale fest, dass der literarische Detektiv die gesellschaftliche Funktion erfüllt, uns von der Anwesenheit des Todes zu erlösen. Er nimmt die unerträgliche Last der Ungewissheit von uns. Diesen Gefallen tun Summerscale und Whicher dem Leser des Buches nicht - am Ende steht ein starker Verdacht, dass die letztlich aufgedeckte Wahrheit nicht die ganze Wahrheit gewesen sein mochte, dass es Geheimnisse gibt, die im jenem abgeschlossenen Raum des Privaten verblieben sein könnten, dessen Veröffentlichung im Zuge der Ermittlungen die eigentlich skandalöse Tat jener Detektive von Scotland Yard war, über welche sich die englische Gesellschaft empörte. In ihrem kurzen Nachwort kehrt Summerscale noch einmal zum Opfer jenes Mordes zurück, zu dem kleinen, dreijährigen Jungen, der - so die Auslegung eines Mediziners, der die Leiche nach deren Fund untersuchte - seine Mörder gesehen und die gegen ihn geführte Klinge abzuwehren versucht haben musste. Summerscale räumt ein, dass erst die Lektüre dieses den Augenblick des Todes heraufbeschwörenden Berichts sie aus ihrem analytischen Gedankengebäude in die Wirklichkeit zurückholte: "I was reminded, with a jolt, that the boy lived. In unravelling the story of his murder, I had forgotten him." Mit ihrem Buch, das mich bei aller dokumentarischen Sorgfalt und kenntnisreicher Verknüpfung von gesellschaftlichen Phänomenen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts insbesondere im letzten Drittel stellenweise an den Rand des Tränenvergießens gebracht hat, hat sie diesem Vergessen nachhaltig die Stirn geboten. THE SUSPICIONS OF MISTER WHICHER ist eines der ergreifendsten Bücher, die ich seit langem gelesen habe. Das darf man als eine Empfehlung werten.

• The Dark Side Brought to Light

  This is a fascinating story on so many levels: a study of a family's dark secrets, brought to light by a determined detective; the unraveling of clues leading to the solving of a grisly murder; a study of Victorian society, mores, and family life; and a fascinating character study not only of the family involved in the murder, but also of the detective who doggedly sought to solve the crime. This book is well-researched, yet seldom becomes bogged down in too much detail (and, well, detail is essential when one is attempting to solve a crime, after all). Detective Whicher, working at the dawn of his profession, is one of the most successful and best-known of the time. Thus he is sent to solve the murder of a small child when the only viable suspects are those who were in the house at the time -- the family and its servants. He treads therefore on shaky ground and his suspicions make him extremely unpopular with the family and the public. This is a story as much about his the damage done to his reputation, and the pain it causes him, as it is about the crime he seeks to solve. The fact that he had to use what clues (even the word "clue" was new!) he could, in an age before DNA testing, fingerprints, and other more sophisticated means of criminal analysis were available, makes his story all the more mesmerizing. Detectives often had to use their gut instincts, but instincts alone couldn't solve crimes, even if they were correct. The juxtaposition of the unhappy family, seeking to keep its problems secret, the detective who is forced to unearth those secrets to solve the crime, and the society at large which is dealing with a new age not only in the family, but in science and religion, makes for a fascinating story. I recommend it highly, especially for anyone interested in mystery, crime-solving, and the Victorian Age.

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