Customer Reviews:
 Sense and Prejudice November 10, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
If you enjoyed Daniel Stashower's "The Beautiful Cigar Girl," or either of Erik Larson's books, "The Devil in the White City" or "Thunderstruck," you should find "The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher" good reading. Like those other books, the author treats the story of a true crime like a prism through which to peer deeply into the society that the crime mirrors and transforms. In this case, Victorian England is under the microscope, when the sanctity of family privacy is pitted against an explosion in journalistic reporting, the development of elite police crime investigators and public appetite for crime stories. Summerscale moves through reams of detail at the pace of a fictional page-turner, and she leaves few stones unturned in the era's society, psychology, journalism, criminology, as well as the rise of detective fiction and its appeal that remains unabated today--just look at the popularity of the CSI shows and the Law & Order franchise.
The crime and consequent events at the heart of "The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher" bear more than a chilling resemblance to the Jon Benet Ramsey case, though unlike our contemporary horror it is largely solved. In the deep of the night in late June of 1860, in a carefully walled and locked country manor house, a large family sleeps: the patriarch, his four older children from his first marriage, his second wife, their younger children and live-in servants. In the morning, the three-year-old son is discovered missing from his crib in a room where the nursemaid and another child also slept. His body is discovered shoved down the servants' privy. He had been suffocated, stabbed and his neck slashed. Two days later, Jonathan Whicher arrives, one of the new breed of elite metropolitan plain-clothes police detectives whose career was recorded with admiration by Dickens and journalists of the day. He deploys extraordinary skill in identifying a culprit, one of the older children, but then he runs amok of the deep resentment of his invasion of the family's privacy, class biases and the politics of the court.
Before I cracked open this book, I thought the subtitle to be something of a spoiler. In fact, Whicher hits the wall in the magistrate's court just half way through the book. There are several reversals and revelations to come. Stick with it. It is astounding. It will make you think.
 Thoroughly researched True Crime October 20, 2008
I have to say this is one of the more interesting true crime stories I have read. Ms. Summerscale has done an impeccable job researching the Saville Kent murder mystery, as well as the evolution of detecting, detective novels, and the effects it all had on Victorian England.
The story is a sad one: Saville Kent, the young son (I believe he was 3) of a middle class family was murdered in 1860 in England. It appeared as though the murderer was an internal habitant of Road Hill House where the family and their servants resided. But who? In the privacy of a Victorian middle class home, who could have killed such a young boy?
The murder coincides with the emergence of the detective. Fiction is rampant with stories of genius sleuths that only engross the public in true crime.
These two events clash in a story that takes you through every nook and cranny of the case. And this may be the only problem: too much research and too much explanation tend to make parts difficult to get through. You are so tantalized that the extra details seem tedious as you, the reader, try to unravel the case.
But Summerscale does "solve" the mystery and even takes to the deaths of all the major parties involved.
Had she not added her thoughtful and though-provoking afterward, I would have given this book 3 stars. But she wallops her readers in the end with a profound note about her writing, the case, and our perceptions.
Brilliant research, wonderful writing, and an amazing criminal case at an interesting point in history makes this book fulfilling to read.
Recommended.
The Suspicions of Mr Whicher October 2, 2008
This is a well written book. I was surprised to find myself propelled forward throughout as it is a combination of the details of an historical event and yet is a mystery. I thought that the writer captured the life of the people and the beliefs of the time very well.
This is a good read
An Elegant Overview October 1, 2008
Using a sensational murder case as a magnifying glass, the author elegantly explores links between literature and society. The subtitle ought however, to be the making of the great detective genre. The case was certainly unthinkable: one summer night i 1860 a small boy is lifted from his bed, his throat slit, and his body dumped in the servants' privy. All the evidence suggests the murderer is a member of the household. The Kent family was what we would call blended, children of two marriages living w/ the father and his second wife. But this blend was clearly lethal. The Kent murder was the O. J. Simpson murder of its day, and the case reverberated throughout Victorian society. The author tells a compelling tale, using the mystery-genre's techniques of judicially parcelling out information. As w/ many mysteries, the middle of the book sags, but her conjectures at the end, supporting Detective Whicher's initial conclusions, are undeniably convincing. This is a broad and imaginative book, well told. If nothing else, the photograph of the old lady who lived to be 100 will keep you going through the pages.
 Are we reading the same book? September 29, 2008
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
I only made it through the first half of this yawner. Given the subject matter and the author's unquestionable dedication to her research, there is a good deal of potential in this book. Unfortunately, author's proclivity for extraneous details and commentary makes the book darn near inpenetrable.
After slogging through many random and unrelated "nuggets", I finally put down the book in frustration after growing tired of the author's habit of inserting quotes from famous ficticious detectives as if they were real authorities on the subject, and providing these "insights" without much in the way of comment to make a point.
As a fan of books about similar subjects and the same era (The Alienist, The Angel of Darkness, Devil in the White City, Thunderstruck) I was hoping this would be another good read. As other reviewers have said, it is a good story let down by poor editing. I would recommend Caleb Carr or Erik Larson as better alternatives to Ms. Summerscale.
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