Preamble
As I read and write and think a lot about detective and crime fiction, I’ve a series of reviews on the theme. Sadly, capacity is too limited to cover detective films and TV series too! If you’re interested in reading my academic work about detective and crime fiction (free PDFs available), check it out here. Or you can take a look at my short story collection featuring Victorian “lady detective” Meinir Davies: support on Kickstarter or preorder now!
See also
These lists capture other detective/crime stories and characters that I thought of as I was reading this piece. I won’t explain why, to avoid spoilers, but they’re associations and not ‘if you liked this, then you’ll love…’ recommendations!
- Shooting Victoria, by Paul Thomas Murphy
- Lady Killers, Lucy Worsley’s podcast on Victorian female killers
Review (3.5 out of 5)
Claire Harman’s true crime/pop-history account of an aristocrat’s shocking murder has some strong historical detail, is well researched, and picks out a variety of key themes that influenced the early development of the detective fiction genre, from deathly suspicions about servants, to lurid sensationalism in the media, and the ‘market’ for death and horror, such as Madame Tussaud’s wax works of executed murders and the death-mask casts that were put on sale. However, the book does not really tackle the central question of its blurb: could a novel really lead someone to kill?
Harman takes us through the sensational murder of Lord William Russell in 1840. (You probably won’t have heard of him. Wikipedia has a rather tart description of him as having done “little to attract public attention after the end of his political career until, in 1840, he was murdered in his sleep by his valet”. Kudos to whichever editor wrote that!) The trial as well as the murder was contentious, with the valet’s barrister, Charles Phillips, likely going too far in his attempted defence of his client even after Courvoisier, the valet, had confessed to him.
Because Harman’s interest is in how literature, and certain famous authors, such as Dickens and Thackeray, were affected by the case, I find the actual account of the crime, investigation, and trial somewhat underwhelming for a true crime book. The mode seems to switch between genuine interest in the crime—there is lots of scene-setting and introductory material for us to get to know the victim—and interest in the case as a particular touchstone amongst many lurid crimes and executions. There are two interesting stories to be told here, but they don’t quite come together. The novel that may have inspired the killer, William Harrison Ainsworth’s Jack Sheppard (1839-40), is not mentioned in the blurb, instead allowing a strong implication that a novel by one of the more famous authors might have been at issue.
There are some genuinely interesting facts here about how this specific case affected various canonical authors’ thinking and careers, such as Dickens using the execution experience to inform the hanging seen in Barnaby Rudge. The way in which the wider media landscape affected the case is of real interest, but begins only 120 pages in. For example, the rapid-fire of letters between Ainsworth and Sheriff William Evans about the veracity of Courvoisier’s confession puts one in mind of Twitter spats and is a nice reminder that there is nothing really new under the sun. For those who are interested in Dickens and his long literary career, the ways in which he might be said to have pivoted in response to market forces after the case and the media coverage of literature’s possible influence is also fascinating. Similarly, those who are interested in criminology and investigative methods’ developments in parallel with crime and detective fiction will also find interesting historical nuggets here, such as Dr Robert Blake Overton’s proposal to use fingerprinting to detect the killer from a bloody hand print on the bed. (Fingerprinting wasn’t to be used to help solve criminal cases until 50 years later.) Overall, however, the organisation of the material doesn’t quite allow these to shine.
Claire Harman’s Murder By The Book was not part of my 2023 Victorian reading project, I’m afraid, but a detour while putting the finishing touches to my upcoming book, The Casebook of Meinir Davies, about a female detective at the fin de siècle. Check out the Kickstarter and preorders now.
Dominique Gracia 
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