Victorian True Crime

“A tour de force of storytelling.” —Louise Penny, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Chief Inspector Gamache series “Jobb’s excellent storytelling makes the book a pleasure to read.” —The New York Times Book Review ”When a doctor does go wrong he is the first of...

Murder in the 19th century was rare. But murder as sensation and entertainment became ubiquitous, with cold-blooded killings transformed into novels, broadsides, ballads, opera, and melodrama - even into puppet shows and performing-dog acts. Detective fiction and the new police force developed in parallel, each imitating the other - the founders of Scotland Yard gave rise to Dickens's Inspector Bucket, the first fictional police detective, who in turn influenced Sherlock Holmes and, ultimately, even P. D. James and Patricia Cornwell.

What if everything you admired about the Victorians—was built on denial? Beneath the lace gloves and gaslight of 19th-century England lay a darker world—one of public executions and private abuses, imperial brutality and official denial, moral posturing and systemic hypocrisy. The Dark Side of the Victorian Era pulls back the velvet curtain to reveal the crimes, cover-ups, and contradictions that polite society worked hard to ignore. From child migrants sent overseas under the banner of Christian charity to the macabre spectacles of execution day, from Parliament’s strategic silences ...

In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet weekly in the Jigsaw Room to discuss unsolved crimes; together, they call themselves the Thursday Murder Club. When a local developer is found dead with a mysterious photograph left next to the body, the Thursday Murder Club suddenly find themselves in the middle of their first live case.

A new compilation of Bram Stoker’s cult vampire novels for the 100th anniversary of his death. This delightful new compilation of Bram Stoker's cult classics will be sure to satisfy any lover of vampire fiction, from Dracula to Twilight. All three novels were published after Dracula debuted in 1897. They flirt with vampirism, horror, and human folly in the best Gothic tradition - all attempts to duplicate Stoker's only success.

The brutal murder of septuagenarian John Templeman shocks the little cottage community of Pocock's Fields. Rumours of illicit affairs, army desertion and violent confrontations spread as the community waits to see who will be sent to trial. An extraordinary power struggle develops between the Coroner, leading the Inquest, and the Police Magistrate, leading the Inquiry. As the case reaches a crisis point, just how far will the authorities be willing to go to bring the perpetrator to justice?

Fall River, Massachusetts, August 1892. A city sweltering under a suffocating heatwave holds its breath, waiting for something to break. Inside the Borden home on Second Street, the air is thick with more than just heat. It’s a place of oppressive silence, resentful family dynamics, and secrets locked away like the house’s many doors. When Andrew Borden and his wife, Abby, are discovered brutally murdered with a hatchet, the tight-knit community is shattered. Suspicion falls on the unlikeliest of suspects: Andrew’s younger daughter, Lizzie. A quiet, church-going spinster of thirty-two...

Step back into the gaslit alleys of Victorian London, where a shadow known only as Jack the Ripper unleashed a reign of terror that haunts us to this day. In the autumn of 1888, the impoverished district of Whitechapel became the hunting ground for a phantom. A series of brutal, ritualistic murders of destitute women exposed the dark underbelly of the world's wealthiest empire and launched one of the most intense and frustrating manhunts in history. The killer was never caught, leaving behind a terrifying legend and a perfect, unsolved mystery. This meticulously researched book cuts through...

Early in the morning of Monday, July 8, 1895, 13-year-old Robert Coombes and his 12-year-old brother, Nattie, set out from their small, yellow-brick terraced house in East London to watch a cricket match at Lord's. Their father had gone to sea the previous Friday, the boys told their neighbors, and their mother was visiting her family in Liverpool. Over the next 10 days, Robert and Nattie spent extravagantly, pawning their parents' valuables to fund trips to the theatre and the seaside. But as the sun beat down on the Coombes house, a strange smell began to emanate.

On Mother's Day, 1985, the bodies of Kathryn Eastburn and her two young daughters were found in their Fayetteville, North Carolina, home. Katie, an air force captain's wife, had been raped and stabbed to death. Kara and Erin's throats had been slit. Their toddler sister, Jana, was the only survivor. The Cumberland County Sheriff's Department soon focused its investigation on US Army soldier Tim Hennis. Detectives and local prosecutors built their case on circumstantial evidence and a jury convicted Hennis and sentenced him to death. But his defense team refused to give up.

THE LEGEND REEXAMINED – THE CRIME THAT SHOCKED A NATION RETURNS TO THE STAND On the sweltering morning of August 4, 1892, a scream shattered the stillness of Fall River, Massachusetts. Within minutes, a quiet home on Second Street became the most infamous address in America. Inside lay Andrew and Abby Borden—bludgeoned, brutalized, and left to bleed on the polished floors of their own home. Standing in the doorway was their daughter, Lizzie Borden—calm, pale, and soon to be accused of the most sensational crime of the nineteenth century. Axed: The Untold Shocking True Story of Lizzie ...

The astonishing true story of the legendary Victorian burglar Charlie Peace, who became so infamous that he was featured in the Chamber of Horrors at Madame Tussauds and was name-checked in the Sherlock Holmes story ‘The Illustrious Client’. This could only be a true crime story, because had it been fictional no one would have believed it.

The 'H' is Silent. The Horror Isn't. The archives run deeper than anyone imagined. Welcome to Volume Six of the series that's redefining British true crime. This isn't just another collection; it's the beginning of a new era. Longer stories, deeper research, and the raw, unfiltered truth behind Britain's most chilling, and odd, crimes From the gaslit alleys of Victorian England to the stark, modern landscapes of unsolved cold cases, this is a proper smorgasbord of British villainy. Author Ben Oakley digs deeper than ever before, weaving together facts and forgotten details into narratives ...

CRACKING THE LIZZIE BORDEN CASE: FORENSICS, FORGERIES, AND FORGOTTEN CLUES “Lizzie Borden took an axe…” — or did she? For more than 130 years, one name has haunted American true crime history: Lizzie Borden. In the summer of 1892, the quiet New England town of Fall River, Massachusetts, was shattered by the brutal double homicide of Andrew and Abby Borden. The weapon was simple — a household axe — but the question of who wielded it has divided generations of investigators, historians, and forensic experts. The rhyme is famous, the story legendary… but what if the legend is ...

On Halloween night, 1828, in the West Port district of Edinburgh, Scotland, a woman sometimes known as Madgy Docherty was last seen in the company of William Burke and William Hare. Days later, police discovered her remains in the surgery of the prominent anatomist Dr. Robert Knox. Docherty was the final victim of the most atrocious murder spree of the century. Together with their accomplices, Burke and Hare would be accused of killing 16 people over the course of 12 months in order to sell the corpses as "subjects" for dissection.

Lord Charles Danvers, still mourning his lost love Charlotte, hopes to escape from his ghosts at the gala coming-of-age celebrations for the son of his oldest friend. All is jubilation and proper respectability until the evening is shattered by a brutal murder. The police are quick to point to a quarrelsome farmer, but Danvers has his doubts. Is the real culprit much closer to home? And does Danvers owe the greater loyalty to an old friend or to the truth? Then, Danver is even more unsettled by the entrance of the alluring Lady Antonia Hoover. The first in the Lord Danvers Investigates ...

Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine, and Mary-Jane are famous for the same thing, though they never met. What they had in common was the year of their murders: 1888. The person responsible was never identified, but the character created by the press to fill that gap has become far more famous than any of these five women. For more than a century, newspapers have been keen to tell us that "the Ripper" preyed on prostitutes. Not only is this untrue, as historian Hallie Rubenhold has discovered, but it has prevented the real stories of these fascinating women from being told.

Peel back the headlines and enter the heart of Australia’s most chilling dinner-table crime—unravel the Erin Patterson mushroom murders in gripping detail, even if you think you know the whole story. What really happened behind closed doors in Leongatha, Australia? Which clues did the world’s eyes—and police—miss? How did tragedy at a Saturday family lunch spiral into an international obsession and a landmark legal battle? Fatal Invitation is your definitive, fact-driven guide through the tangled web of betrayal, forensic intrigue, and courtroom drama that shook a nation—and the...

Lights! Camera! Action! The latest book in the Big Book Series takes us behind the curtain to uncover the stories that became some of the greatest films of the silver screen. Among these are Robert Louis Stevenson's horrifying tale that was later turned into the iconic movie The Body Snatcher, starring Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff; and "Cyclists' Raid", the short story that formed the basis for the legendary Brando film The Wild One.

Breathless and painstakingly researched, this is a stunning debut mystery in which Sherlock Holmes unmasks Jack the Ripper. Lyndsay Faye perfectly captures all the color and syntax of Conan Doyle’s distinctive nineteenth-century London.