There is so much that is good about Kate Summerscale's The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher that I'm not even sure where to begin talking about it. Modelled on the country house murder mystery, those cozy mysteries I love so much where all the windows and doors are firmly locked so the culprit has to be one of the occupants, there is nothing really very cozy about the story Summerscale tells. This is a whodunnit of the best kind, the kind that reveals not just the murderer but places everything firmly in a time and place, so you get a vivid picture of the crime and its aftermath.
Summerscale covers a lot of ground in this book, and at a remarkably fast pace as well. I've read a few reviews that have been critical of all the material Summerscale makes use of, but I liked the attention to detail. I found it extremely fascinating and want to read more about the period in general. It's a combination murder mystery, history, true crime, biography, social commentary and literary survey. I've mentioned this reads like fiction. If all nonfiction was as entertaining (maybe not the best word when talking about a murder) as this book was, I think I'd read a whole lot more of it and much faster than I normally do.
In the early hours of 29 June 1860 four-year-old Francis Saville, the youngest son of Samuel and Mary Kent, went missing from his cot. Upon waking, his governess who shared his room believed his mother had heard him crying and had taken the boy to her bedroom. It wasn't until several hours later that his disappearance was noted. In a general search the body was found, and any semblance of normalcy for the Kent family was over. As a matter of fact if there was such a thing as innocence for a country, especially the middle class, that was over, too. After the initial investigation by local police was bungled, Jack Whicher, Scotland Yard's best, was called in. He was at the summit of his career, but by the time his investigation was over he would be much maligned and disparaged.
Detectives were still a fairly new phenomenon, and Whicher was one of the first of eight formally named detective. And he was very successful at his job. It was a fine line, however, that Whicher could walk when he went to investigate the murder that had occurred at Road Hill House. There was a frenzy as the public watched the investigation unfold, but when things got too close to a seemingly normal, respectable middle class family it all turned sour for Whicher. The Victorians were extremely private, so Whicher's questions that scrutinized this family and opened it up to suspicion were ultimately viewed with contempt. On the one hand the public was held in thrall over this murder and everyone played detective, but privacy trumped all, particularly when Whicher's investigation and accusations fell through.
There's something very voyeuristic about detective-work. The doors of Road Hill House were essentially thrown open to the world and literally all their dirty laundry was aired. There were whispers of insanity in the family stemming from the Samuel Kent's first wife. After her death he married his, then governess, and started a second family. The Kents had unusual living arrangements with the older children from the previous marriage living in the upper storey with the servants. It wasn't pretty. All the more so to have it discussed in lurid detail in the daily newspapers, of which there were many at this time.
I thought it was interesting that as the murder was being investigated, Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White was being serialized. The investigation sparked all sorts of sensational literary efforts such as Lady Audley's Secret, no doubt devoured by many but criticized by an equal number, I'm sure. Looking behind those closed doors was titillating stuff, even as you know you shouldn't do it. Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone was directly inspired by Jack Whicher and the Road Hill House murder, but the details were tempered considerably. It was the start of detective-fever, that seems to me to continue even now. I know I'm ready to start rereading some Wilkie Collins and Mary Elizabeth Braddon.
I marked all sorts of interesting passages that I wanted to share, but as my post has already gotten long enough (and I've only touched on a few of the things I wanted to write about), I'll leave it to you to discover them if you've not yet read this wonderful book. Highly recommended.