Customer Reviews:
 A Long, Hard Slog August 5, 2008
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
The book reads like someone did enormous amounts of research, then couldn't bear to leave anything out of the final product. As a result of the continual snippets of files, references, word origins, quotes from and references to Dickens, etc., the prose is turgid, and the book is tedious. Despite the fact that the story itself is highly interesting, the author manages to make getting through the book a hard slog. The editor should have cut the book in half.
This book may well be enjoyed by those interested in the origins of the practice now known as "detection" and who need something to help put them to sleep at night, but those looking for a "good read" should look elsewhere.
 Exceeded Expectations July 30, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
After reading the review in the NYTimes, I was very eager to read this book. It was a great story, well written, well researched and very compelling. I have read many historical accounts and this book stands alone in being a true page turner! I could not wait to find out who the murderer was. I am a big mystery fan and was intrigued to learn that it was this story that inspired so many British novelists. I could not wait to sink my teeth into this book and was not disappointed.
 Interesting, but Saturated with Unnecessary Details July 29, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
While Summerscale should be praised for all of the research she did while creating this text, she should also be critiqued for her saturating the book with unnecessary details. I found it highly irritating when she referred to another book or meaningless detail about a person unrelated to the story every paragraph or so. It was almost as if she wanted to prove how much she learned while researching. This took away from the storyline and dragged the book on and on. As a result, I would not recommend this book nor read another by this author's.
A Most Intriguing Volume July 28, 2008
Although this book is non-fiction, the author presents the individuals and the events in a style leaning more towards fiction, with dialogue and detailed descriptions of people and places. Great insights into the Victorian world, and the world of the early detective! Summerscale also relates the popular mystery fiction of the time to actual events. The reader gets an interesting insight into the psyche of people living in 1860. A real page-turner for me, The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher definitely made me a Kate Summerscale fan!
The true case that started the murder mystery genre July 28, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is a shocking murder case in Victorian England, complete with a host of suspicious servants, a scary labyrinthine mansion, the lord and lady of the house hiding dark secrets.
You've read these before, maybe by Agatha Christie or P.D. James? OK, but this a true story, complete with photos of the evidence and suspects.
Seen that before? Not like this. This is the true case that started the hunger for British detective fiction. Moreover, the first mystery writers based their fictional characters on these people. Well before before Sherlock Holmes, throughout England people began to follow the detectives' investigations -- they went on for years -- and just maybe solve the case themselves.
In many ways, it is the first classic murder mystery.
While the detective story was invented by our Edgar Allan Poe, it was a bit of dead end. You see, there were no real-life detectives. Until Mr. Whicher and his colleagues at the Metropolitan Police.
I don't how the author learned of this case, but the story she tells is really the story of the beginning of forensic science. Before DNA evidence? Yes. In fact, even before fingerprint evidence. Yet, these detectives were charged with solving crimes and using their "little gray cells," they did.
If you read true crime, if you love a good British mystery, you must read this book. Creepy, riveting and brilliant.
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