The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective
by Kate Summerscale
List Price:
Our Price: $3.79
You Save: $12.21 (76%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.22 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Kate SummerscaleEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-02-24
ISBN: 080271742X
Number of pages: 400
Publisher: Walker & Company
Book Reviews of The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective
Book Review: Maybe I'm just a geek for detail, but this is the best true crime book I've ever read
Summary: 5 Stars
This is not a true "review," but I wanted to comment on the reasoning of the negative reviews below.
Uniformly, those disappointed in the book cite the "extraneous detail" from the author. They felt misled by the packaging and marketing of the book as a detective thriller. In that aspect, these readers are correct. On first sight of the cover, subtitle, blurb, reviews, this looks like a straight-up Victorian detective thriller.
But it is so much more than that. If you are looking for a modern, streamlined, James Patterson or even Eric Larson clone, you WILL be disappointed. It's not a beach or airport read. The book would be more accurately marketed as a thoughtful analysis, with scrupulous and wide-ranging research, of all the ramifications of the case -- sociological, literary, even philosophical. This was the first JonBenet Ramsey case and its echoes are still reverberating today.
Personally, I enjoyed each and every discursion from the narrow confines of the straight murder story. Other books have handled the crime itself, though this author even brings new and fascinating light to the "solution." I appreciated what the NYT reviewer perceptively noted: the author takes the trouble to teach us about the world in which the criminal acted, which is fundamental to detection. We need to know what acted on the criminal. As well, she shows us what effects the crime had on the world at large. Murder does not occur in a vacuum, and this is the problem with most detective fiction written as an isolated puzzle. The real world is not so neat and clean. Ultimately, this is the main point she makes: detection itself isolates and sanitizes the crime to the point where the humanity of the story, especially that of the victim, is lost.
Once upon a time, JonBenet Ramsey was a living, breathing little girl, an individual, not a symbol. Saville Kent (the victim in this story) likewise was once his own little person.
The book masterfully brings one to that conclusion without false sentiment, and the whirl of "extraneous" detail leading to that conclusion makes it all the more poignant.
Best true crime book I ever read precisely because of that unique sensitivity.
More The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective reviews:
1 2 3 4 5 6
1 2 3 4 5 6
Summary of The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective
The national bestseller, now in paperback. In June of 1860 three-year-old Saville Kent was found at the bottom of an outdoor privy with his throat slit. T he crime horrified all England and led to a national obsession with detection, ironically destroying, in the process, the career of perhaps the greatest detective in the land. I nspector Jonathan Whicher?s real legacy, however, lives on in fiction: the tough, quirky, all-knowing and all-seeing detective that we know and love today?from the cryptic Sgt. Cuff in Wilkie Collins?s The Moonstone to Dashiell Hammett?s Sam Spade. The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher reads like the best of Victorian thrillers, and has been nominated for the Samuel Johnson Prize in London.
Criminals Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Criminals Books
Raging Bull: My Storyby Jake La Motta, Joseph Carter, Peter Savage
Da Capo Press; Published: 1997-08-22; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.61
Price in other shops:
Conversations with the Capeman: The Untold Story of Salvador Agronby Richard Jacoby, Hubert Selby Jr.
University of Wisconsin Press; Published: 2004-07-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $22.30
Price in other shops:
Profiles from Prison: Adjusting to Life Behind Bars (Criminal Justice, Delinquency, and Corrections)by Michael G. Santos
Praeger; Published: 2003-06-30; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $62.95
The Woman Who Murdered Babies for Money: The Story of Amelia Dyerby Alison Rattle, Allison Vale
Andre Deutsch; Published: 2011-03-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.18
Price in other shops:
Counterterrorism Calendar 2009US Independent Agencies and Commissions; Published: 2009-01-23; Spiral-bound; Book
Best price: $55.72
The Wolf of Wall Streetby Jordan Belfort
Bantam; Published: 2007-09-25; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $8.41
Price in other shops:
Oswald's Tale: An American Mysteryby Norman Mailer
Random House Trade Paperbacks; Published: 2007-01-23; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.60
Price in other shops:
Dillinger: The Untold Story, Anniversary Editionby G. Russell Girardin, William J. Helmer
Indiana University Press; Published: 2009-07-16; Paperback; Book
Best price: $13.77
Price in other shops:
The Man Who Made Vermeers: Unvarnishing the Legend of Master Forger Han van Meegerenby Jonathan Lopez
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; Published: 2008-08-15; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $4.14
Price in other shops:
Son of a Grifter: The Twisted Tale of Sante and Kenny Kimes, the Most Notorious Con Artists in Americaby Kent Walker with Mark Schone
Avon; Published: 2002-04-02; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.69
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
Sin in the Second City: Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle for America's Soulby Karen Abbott
Random House Trade Paperbacks; Published: 2008-06-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.52
Price in other shops:
Tess of the D'Urbervilles (Penguin Classics)by Thomas Hardy
Penguin Classics; Published: 1999-01-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.75
Price in other shops:
The Franchise Affairby Josephine Tey
Touchstone; Published: 1998-08-18; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.74
Price in other shops:
Mary Reillyby Valerie Martin
Vintage; Published: 2001-04-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.89
Price in other shops:
Mao Zedong: A Life (A Penguin Life)by Jonathan Spence
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2006-08-29; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.90
Price in other shops:
The Great Cat Massacre: And Other Episodes in French Cultural Historyby Robert Darnton
Basic Books; Published: 2009-05-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.99
Price in other shops:
The Age of Reformby Richard Hofstadter
Vintage; Published: 1960-02-12; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.50
Price in other shops:
The Murder of the Century: The Gilded Age Crime That Scandalized a City & Sparked the Tabloid Warsby Paul Collins
Crown; Published: 2011-06-14; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $13.77
Price in other shops:
The Devil's Gentleman: Privilege, Poison, and the Trial That Ushered in the Twentieth Centuryby Harold Schechter
Ballantine Books; Published: 2008-09-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.46
Price in other shops:
The Killer of Little Shepherds: A True Crime Story and the Birth of Forensic Scienceby Douglas Starr
Vintage; Published: 2011-11-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.64
Price in other shops: