Stranger than fiction

As clichés go, the one about truth being stranger than fiction is both one of the oldest and one of the most apt. "I'm not making this up" may seem at times a little like protesting too much, but while not always stranger, the right story (or even the wrong story) in the hands of a skilled storyteller should always produce an interesting tale. "It's how you tell 'em", so to speak.

If crime is something I'd not previously gone very near, then what could be termed true crime was a truly new experience. Add to the fact it's Victorian, which is a time period that many adore, but i have no great affinity with in either historial or literary terms, and you'd think that The Suspicions of Mr Whicher might not be my cup of tea. Fortunately, Kate Summerscale knows how to tell a story, for it does indeed read like one, rather than, say, a report. The development of the characters is key to this, the details about their pasts and how previous events may have fed into the present. And the continuation past the event, to look at the lives of the individuals afterwards makes it a more complete, if not wholesome, tale that is focused on the people as much as the crime.

I can't say I'd ever heard of the murder, though clearly at it was big news, the Moors murders, Soham murders, Jamie Bulger or Madeleine McCann of its day. The scandalous nature of the crime, the hidden family secrets, the history of detective work all add up to create a far more interesting narrative, with plenty of enlightening facts thrown in than it might otherwise have been. Eminently readable, I can see why it received such wide-ranging and diverse praise, for it successfully ticks all the boxes on what such a title should do.

Book number: 79
Title: The Suspicions of Mr Whicher or the Murder at Road Hill House
Author: Kate Summerscale
Category: Crime