A Very British Murder

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We would never know her name today but for the fact that in 1827 she was murdered by her lover, and buried under the floor of a Suffolk barn. I've been dipping in and out of this one as I like to do with Non Fiction and as a reader interested in true crime and indeed crime fiction this was a great little read. She has an easy to read style with a slight quirkiness, reminiscent of her presentation style on TV. If you are interested in Crime, both as fiction and as reality, especially in how it affects the public psyche, then you will certainly find a lot to appreciate here. From there, the book goes on to look at other infamous cases, the rise of the detective, and ends with the development of the Golden Age of Mysteries.

It is fair to say that this work does have some limitations; it is a little unfocused and tends to rely on the notorious and shocking, in a way which will probably have more impact on the screen than on the page. Crime and murder were discovered to provide public entertainment that "would thrill, horrify, and delight" leading to the popularity of the mystery novel. Dr Lucy Worsley is a historian and Chief Curator of the Historic Royal Palaces, where she looks after the Tower of London and Hampton Court Palace among others. Nell and Sylvie grow up quickly during the early days of rationing, black-outs, and the arrival of R We see how the rise of the detective in real-life began to be mirrored in some fiction, while the early failures of the police to solve crimes left the door open for the rise of the fictional amateur sleuth.The book traces the development of the British crime novel from its beginnings in the Georgian Sensation novels and fascination with real life crimes, through the Victorian crime novels -Wilkie Collins, Arthur Conan Doyle, and into the Golden Age of classic detective novels in the 1920s and 30s -Agatha Christie, Dorothy L.

m. on KPBS 2 - Lucy begins with real-life crime from the first half of the nineteenth century - the Ratcliffe Highway Murders; Mariah Marten and the Red Barn; and the Bermondsey Horror.But for a man who I do admire for his assessment elsewhere of 'Lord of the Rings' as 'juvenile trash' - and something I cannot raise any enthusiasm for - he did enrage the public. I found it remarkable how much change there has been in Britain just in the 10 years since the book was published - LW remarks at people traipsing through a murder scene 200 years ago and says that would be unacceptable now - yet consider the reaction recently when a murder went missing from a river bank and thousands of people went to the area to "investigate".