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Description
FROM BRITAIN'S TOP-SELLING TRUE CRIME WRITER
'The queen of Victorian true crime is back' MAIL ON SUNDAY
SHORTLISTED FOR THE CWA GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION
On 8 July 1895, thirteen-year-old Robert Coombes and his younger brother Nattie set out from their East London home to watch a cricket match. Over the next ten days they spend extravagantly, visiting the theatre and eating out. The boys tell neighbours their father has gone to sea, and their mother to visit family in Liverpool. But when a strange smell begins to emanate from the house, the police are called. What they find throws the press into a frenzy – and the boys into a highly publicised trial.
'An accomplished feat of research and storytelling . . . Wrapping controversial issues into a tense, fluent narrative' HILARY MANTEL
'Riveting . . . Once again the author proves a subtle pathologist, her scalpel slicing away the skin of late-Victorian Britain' DOMINIC SANDBROOK, SUNDAY TIMES BOOKS OF THE YEAR
'A remarkably heartening story' JOHN PRESTON, DAILY MAIL
'An extraordinary book which will stay with you' DAILY EXPRESS
'It would be impossible to read this dry-eyed' SPECTATOR
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Product details
Published | 05 May 2016 |
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Format | Ebook (Epub & Mobi) |
Edition | 1st |
Extent | 400 |
ISBN | 9781408851135 |
Imprint | Bloomsbury Paperbacks |
Illustrations | 2 x 8pp B&W plates |
Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
About the contributors
Reviews
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No other writer could have made the Coombes case so fascinating and so vivid ... It would be impossible to read this dry-eyed
Cressida Connelly, Spectator
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Her research is needle-sharp and her period detail richly atmospheric, but what is most heartening about this truly remarkable book is the story of real-life redemption that it brings to light
John Carey, Sunday Times
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An extraordinary book which will stay with you
Vanessa Berridge, Daily Express
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Gripping... Summerscale is an exquisite storyteller. She is judicious in her use of detail, subtle in her unspoken connections between the past and the present.... This is the story of one wicked boy, but it is also a plea for compassion and empathy
Daisy Goodwin, The Times
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For her latest forensic investigation into the throttled passions of Victorian family life, Summerscale has moved forward 35 years to 1895 and turned away from the provincial bourgeois home to the working-class terraces of London's East End ... [a] fine account ... subtle and confident
Kathryn Hughes, Guardian
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Unexpectedly touching... a fascinating account of a murder and its endless reverberations
Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday