Subtitled: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective

This book follows the story of the Road Hill House murder and the investigations that follow, back when Britain’s first detective agency was in its infancy.

Confession: Somehow, back when this book was really popular in the blogging world and I kept seeing it everywhere, I never realized it was nonfiction. I’m not sure why! But when I was reading the Ruth Galloway mysteries last month, the book and detective came up and I did some more research. It sounded like exactly the kind of book I’d enjoy, and it turned out that it is!

I really love narrative nonfiction, and lately I’ve been craving mysteries and detective stories. While this book is nonfiction, it’s written (kind of) in the style of an old-fashioned detective story. That mixed all the things I love into one book, and I flew through the audio. It helps that Simon Vance was narrating, and he’s one of the best audio narrators ever!

As far as the case goes, I’d never actually heard of the Road Hill House murder, and reading this book gave me a lot of good information (as well as some conjecture on the author’s part, as the case was never fully solved). The case was then mixed in with cultural history like the public’s reaction to detectives and evolution of crime-related slang. In that way, it reminded me a lot of all the tangents in Les Miserables, which many people dislike but which I absolutely adored. Like I said, my kind of book, and I thoroughly enjoyed it! Wish I’d gotten around to reading it years ago!