It is a summer's night in 1860. In an elegant detached Georgian house in the village of Road, Wiltshire, all is quiet. Behind shuttered windows the Kent family lies sound asleep. At some point after midnight a dog barks. The family wakes the next morning to a horrific discovery: an unimaginably gruesome murder has taken place in their home. The household reverberates with shock, not least because the guilty party is surely still among them. Jack Whicher of Scotland Yard, the most celebrated detective of his day, reaches Road Hill House a fortnight later. He faces an unenviable task: to solve a case in which the grieving family are the suspects. The murder provokes national hysteria. The thought of what might be festering behind the closed doors of respectable middle-class homes - scheming servants, rebellious children, insanity, jealousy, loneliness and loathing - arouses fear and a kind of excitement. But when Whicher reaches his shocking conclusion there is uproar and bewilderment. A true story that inspired a generation of writers such as Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens and Arthur Conan Doyle, this has all the hallmarks of the classic murder mystery - a body; a detective; a country house steeped in secrets. In The Suspicions of Mr Whicher Kate Summerscale untangles the facts behind this notorious case, bringing it back to vivid, extraordinary life.

Wonderful book which I throughly enjoyed. Now heading off as a wishlist tag to Brunton11. Hope you enjoy it.

Arrived safely today. This sounds interesting :) thanks for the tag.

I can't quite put my finger on what it was I didn't like about this book - normally I would have enjoyed reading about the introduction of detectives and the skills of Whicher. Possibly it was the way the storyline jumped around and the fact that none of the characters were particularly likeable. Maybe at another time I would have enjoyed it more!

Though on a positive note pretty sure I have some of Wilkie Collins' books that were referenced on MTBR so I might bump those up the reading list as I haven't read much from that era.

Sending on to poppywalker next as part of the UK Wishlist Tag game.

Arrived today as a tag book