Murder by the Book: The Crime That Shocked Dickens's London

Today’s Nonfiction post is on Murder by the Book: The Crime That Shocked Dickens's London by Claire Harman. It is 252 pages long and is published by Alfred A. Knopf. The cover is white with a red book in the center. There is some mild foul language, no sex, and violence in this book. The intended reader is someone interested in true crime, literary history, and where the true cross. There Be Spoilers Ahead.

From the dust jacket- From the acclaimed biographer--the fascinating, little-known story of a Victorian-era murder that rocked literary London, leading Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, and Queen Victoria herself to wonder: Can a novel kill?

In May 1840, Lord William Russell, well known in London's highest social circles, was found with his throat cut. The brutal murder had the whole city talking. The police suspected Russell's valet, Courvoisier, but the evidence was weak. The missing clue, it turned out, lay in the unlikeliest place: what Courvoisier had been reading. In the years just before the murder, new printing methods had made books cheap and abundant, the novel form was on the rise, and suddenly everyone was reading. The best-selling titles were the most sensational true-crime stories. Even Dickens and Thackeray, both at the beginning of their careers, fell under the spell of these tales--Dickens publicly admiring them, Thackeray rejecting them. One such phenomenon was William Harrison Ainsworth's Jack Sheppard, the story of an unrepentant criminal who escaped the gallows time and again. When Lord William's murderer finally confessed his guilt, he would cite this novel in his defense. Murder By the Book combines this thrilling true-crime story with an illuminating account of the rise of the novel form and the battle for its early soul among the most famous writers of the time. It is superbly researched, vividly written, and captivating from first to last. 

Review- A fascinating and well written account of a true crime that may have started the whole blame the media/movie/tv series/book thing that we still have today. Lord William Russell was found murdered in his bed and the whole of London was shocked and the nobles were terrified by the thought that their servants could or would kill them for no reason. Harman does excellent research, the notes are good, and the way she tells the narrative is engaging. The mystery of who did it, why they did, and were they really so strongly influenced by a book, are questions not only posed in the narrative but for the reader themselves to think about. Harmon does handle those questions well but she does the best with ‘Can media make people do things?’ and she covers more than just the supposed book that the man read. She encourages the reader to think about their own actions and how would they engage with this material themselves. She gives basic biographies of the lesser known author and artists that were pulled into this mess. If you like true crime or historical crime, you should give this one a try.

I give this book a Five out of Five stars. I get nothing for my review and I borrowed this book from my local library.