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  • The Suspicions of Mr Whicher

  • The Murder at Road Hill House
  • By: Kate Summerscale
  • Narrated by: Harriet Walter
  • Length: 6 hrs and 19 mins
  • 4.1 out of 5 stars (158 ratings)
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The Suspicions of Mr Whicher cover art

The Suspicions of Mr Whicher

By: Kate Summerscale
Narrated by: Harriet Walter
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Summary

Winner of the British Book Awards, Book of the Year, 2009.
Winner of the British Book Awards, Popular Non-Fiction Award, 2009.
Shortlisted for the British Book Awards, Richard & Judy Best Read, 2009.
A Richard and Judy Book Club Selection.

This fascinating story of a famous Victorian murder case - and the notorious detective who solved it - won of the 2008 Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction.

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.

©2008 Kate Summerscale (P)2008 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Critic reviews

"It is a beautiful piece, written with great lucidity and respect for the reader, and with immaculate restraint. A classic, to my mind, of the finest documentary writing." (John le Carré)
"Summerscale has constructed nothing less than a masterpiece.... The Suspicions of Mr Whicher is at one and the same time a crime thriller, a sociological history, a biography and a fascinating essay on the nature of investigation....My shelves are stacked with books about crime, but none more satisfying than this." (Craig Brown, The Mail on Sunday)
"(A) pacy analysis of a true British murder case from 1860, the unravelling of which involved one of the earliest Scotland Yard detectives and inspired sensation novelists such as Dickens and Wilkie Collins by exposing the dark secrets of the Victorian middle-class home. Absolutely riveting." (Sarah Waters)
"[A] fastidious reconstruction and expansive analysis of the Road Hill murder case...Summerscale smartly uses an energetic narrative voice and a suspenseful pace, among other novelistic devices, to make her factual material read with the urgency of a work of fiction. What she has constructed, specifically, is a traditional country-house mystery, more brutal than cozy, but presenting the same kind of intellectual puzzle as her fictional models and adorned, as such books once were, with wonderfully old-fashioned maps, diagrams, engravings, courtroom sketches and other illustrations...More important, Summerscale accomplishes what modern genre authors hardly bother to do anymore, which is to use a murder investigation as a portal to a wider world. When put in historical context, every aspect of this case tells us something about mid-Victorian society...The author's startling final twist both vindicates her fallen hero and advances an 'aggressive' attack on moral hypocrasy in his day and ours." (Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review)
"Sparse, melancholy, beautifully written ... the year'...

What listeners say about The Suspicions of Mr Whicher

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Fantastic

A Victorian whodunnit that is absorbing from the start. The characters in the household where the unfortunate murder occurs are described in minute detail, as are their actions, feelings and daily lives. I had no idea this was a non-fiction novel based on a true mystery in 1860 and can only wonder how the author managed to intreweave such specific facts about the day to day lives of the characters, the facts concerning the surrounding areas and the subsequent details of the family in later life. This book is brilliant and taught me many things about personalities, policeing in the late 19th century and much much more. Once again fantastic!

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Not for fans of detective fiction

This book is commentary on the birth of detection in Victorian Britain, a study of crime and punishment at that time and a (semi) interesting look at the role of the national and local press at that time.

It is not a murder mystery. Totally lacking in any suspense or tension, it is completely one paced and offers little emotional stimulus for the listener/reader.

The only thing more dull than the narrative is the reading; hard to comprehend how a listener could get excited about a story when the teller sounds like she's reading a shopping list whilst watching paint dry.

If you love your 'whodunnits' then steer well clear. This is not for you (not me as it turns out...)

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Don’t get this abridged version!

I only belatedly realised that there is a fuller version of this book after having listened to the whole of this one. It explains why this particular book has an annoyingly fragmentary quality to it. This narrator is good, but I would much rather have listened to the full version...

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Absorbing account, meticulous research, superb narration.

Summerscale's absorbing story of a historical murder in 19th century rural Somerset proved a best seller when it was first published, and it translates well here to the spoken word. Her clear and easy prose supports with ease some high quality research, and Walters' intelligent reading, with its bell-clear diction, well-judged pace, variety of intonation and well-judged levels of expression (something not all actors are capable of when it comes to audiobooks) combines to make this an engaging "listen".

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Al
  • 17-06-15

Unputdownable

Nothing about this was disappointing read beautifully, story gripping from first to last and just the kind of book that will have you researching long after you have stopped listening

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Brilliant!

Very well written and an excellent, engaging performance.

I listened to the entire book in one sitting as I found the tale to be gripping.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Wonderful!

Treat yourself to this one if you love true crime
Thorough research and a real talent for writing make this an amazing book to listen to

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent research

Informative and entertaining. I know this story well but I still found this book very interesting

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Brilliant! Didn’t realise it was abridged though :(

As a relative newbie to Audible I made the fatal errors of not reading the reviews or noticing that there are abridged versions of audiobooks. Though the narration was very good, I noticed that the story was a bit disjointed and felt cut short in places, then realised it was abridged. Won’t make that mistake again!

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

One of the best audiobooks I’ve heard of the 300+ I own

A fascinating true story, on every level. Beautifully told. I could not stop listening. And a remarkable ending.

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