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A thrilling reconstruction of a brutal Victorian murder, in which Paul Thomas Murphy identifies, after 144 years, the killer responsible for the slaying of Jane Maria Clouson.
About the author
Paul Thomas Murphy is the author of the much-praised Shooting Victoria. He earned PhD from the University of Colorado where he taught interdisciplinary writing on Victorian topics. He currently resides in Boulder, Colorado.
Summary
In April 1871, a constable walking a beat near Greenwich found a girl dying in the mud – her face cruelly slashed and her brains protruding from her skull.
The girl was Maria Jane Clouson, a maid for the respectable Pook family, and who was pregnant at the time of her death. When the blood-spattered clothes of the 20-year-old Edmund Pook, alleged father of the dead girl's unborn child, were discovered, the matter seemed open and shut. Yet there followed a remarkable legal odyssey full of unexpected twists as the police struggled to build a case.
Paul Thomas Murphy recreated the drama of an extraordinary murder case and conclusively identifies the killer's true identity.
Additional text
A thoroughly absorbing read for anyone interested in Victorian crime' Who Do You Think You Are magazine.
