{"product_id":"the-suspicions-of-mr-whicher-a-shocking-murder-and-the-undoing-of-a-great-victorian-detective","title":"The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective","description":"The dramatic story of the real-life murder that inspired the birth of modern detective fiction.\n\nIn June of 1860 three-year-old Saville Kent was found at the bottom of an outdoor privy with his throat slit. The crime horrified all England and led to a national obsession with detection, ironically destroying, in the process, the career of perhaps the greatest detective in the land.\nAt the time, the detective was a relatively new invention; there were only eight detectives in all of England and rarely were they called out of London, but this crime was so shocking, as Kate Summerscale relates in her scintillating new book, that Scotland Yard sent its best man to investigate, Inspector Jonathan Whicher.\nWhicher quickly believed the unbelievable―that someone within the family was responsible for the murder of young Saville Kent. Without sufficient evidence or a confession, though, his case was circumstantial and he returned to London a broken man. Though he would be vindicated five years later, the real legacy of Jonathan Whicher lives on in fiction: the tough, quirky, knowing, and all-seeing detective that we know and love today…from the cryptic Sgt. Cuff in Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone to Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade.\nThe Suspicions of Mr. Whicher is a provocative work of nonfiction that reads like a Victorian thriller, and in it Kate Summerscale has fashioned a brilliant, multilayered narrative that is as cleverly constructed as it is beautifully written.\u003cbr\u003eASIN: 0802715354\u003cbr\u003eVSKU: DBV.0802715354.G\u003cbr\u003eCondition: Good\u003cbr\u003eAuthor\/Artist:Summerscale, Kate\u003cbr\u003eBinding: Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eNote:\u003c\/b\u003e Any images shown are stock photographs and product may differ from what is shown.  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition Notes\u003c\/b\u003e: Gently used with minimal wear on the corners and cover. A few pages may contain light highlighting or writing, but the text remains fully legible. Dust jacket may be missing, and supplemental materials like CDs or codes may not be included. May be ex-library with library markings. Ships promptly!  \u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Dream Books Co.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":41518532132922,"sku":"DBV.0802715354.G","price":6.79,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0555\/6011\/0138\/files\/0802715354-0.jpg?v=1783912024","url":"https:\/\/shop.dreambooksco.com\/products\/the-suspicions-of-mr-whicher-a-shocking-murder-and-the-undoing-of-a-great-victorian-detective","provider":"Dream Books Co.","version":"1.0","type":"link"}