The Murder of Dr. Chapman
The Legendary Trials of Lucretia Chapman and Her Lover
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The Murder of Dr. Chapman
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Narrated by:
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Kristin Kalbli
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By:
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Linda Wolfe
About this listen
From acclaimed true-crime journalist Linda Wolfe, a spellbinding true tale of 19th-century sex, scandal, and cold-blooded murder.
In 1831, Lucretia Winslow Chapman was a wife and mother of five who had founded one of Philadelphia's first boarding schools for girls. But her comfortable life and marriage to prominent local scientist William Chapman changed forever the night Lino Espos y Mina appeared at their door, requesting lodging. It wasn't long before the Cuban con artist had entrenched himself in the Chapman home and begun an illicit affair with Lucretia. A little over a month later, William Chapman was dead from a lethal dose of poison. Lino and Lucretia were eventually arrested and charged with murder - and the double trial of the century began.
Wolfe skillfully weaves court transcripts, love letters, and period recollections into an edge-of-your-seat historical thriller about the crime that rocked pre-Civil War America. With its shocking verdicts that raised troubling questions about sexism and racism, this mesmerizing true-crime tale still resonates nearly 200 years later.
©2004 Linda Wolfe, This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc. (P)2014 Audible Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 167
In the closing days of 1799, the United States was still a young republic, its uncertain future contested by the two major political parties of the day: the well-moneyed Federalists, led by Alexander Hamilton, and the populist Republicans, led by Aaron Burr. The two finest lawyers in New York, Burr and Hamilton were bitter rivals both in and out of the courtroom, and as the next election approached - with Manhattan likely to be the swing district on which the presidency would hinge - their animosity reached a fever pitch.
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4 out of 5 stars
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The Trial of the Century
- By Jean on 09-06-15
By: Paul Collins
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The Devil's Gentleman
- Privilege, Poison, and the Trial That Ushered in the Twentieth Century
- By: Harold Schechter
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 15 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 194
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 178
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Story4 out of 5 stars 176
The wayward son of a revered Civil War general, Roland Molineux enjoyed good looks, status, and fortune - hardly the qualities of a prime suspect in a series of shocking, merciless cyanide killings. Molineux's subsequent indictment for murder led to two explosive trials and a sex-infused scandal that shocked the nation. Bringing to life Manhattan's Gilded Age, Schechter captures all the colors of the tumultuous legal proceedings.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Book Without an Accompanying Wiki Page Is Always A Treat
- By Carolina on 02-27-17
By: Harold Schechter
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A Secret Life
- The Lies and Scandals of President Grover Cleveland
- By: Charles Lachman
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 90
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 77
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 78
The child was born on September 14, 1874, at the only hospital in Buffalo, New York, that offered maternity services for unwed mothers. It was a boy, and though he entered the world in a state of illegitimacy, a distinguished name was given to this newborn: Oscar Folsom Cleveland. The son of the future president of the United States - Grover Cleveland. The story of how the man who held the nation’s highest office eventually came to take responsibility for his son is a thrilling one that unfolds like a sordid romance novel....
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5 out of 5 stars
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Are the charges true?
- By Jean on 02-16-13
By: Charles Lachman
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Last Woman Hanged
- The Terrible True Story of Louisa Collins
- By: Caroline Overington
- Narrated by: Jennifer Vuletic
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 55
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 50
In January 1889, Louisa Collins, a 41-year-old mother of 10 children, became the first woman hanged at Darlinghurst Gaol and the last woman hanged in New South Wales. Both of Louisa's husbands had died suddenly and the Crown, convinced that Louisa poisoned them with arsenic, put her on trial an extraordinary four times in order to get a conviction, to the horror of many in the legal community. Louisa protested her innocence until the end.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Enlightening, entertaining and exceptionally done
- By Karol Heim on 02-09-24
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The Battered Body Beneath the Flagstones, and Other Victorian Scandals
- By: Michelle Morgan
- Narrated by: Anne Dover
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 226
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 203
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Story4 out of 5 stars 204
A grisly book dedicated to the crimes, perversions and outrages of Victorian England, covering high-profile offences - such as the murder of actor William Terriss, whose stabbing at the stage door of the Adelphi Theatre in 1897 filled the front pages for many weeks - as well as lesser-known transgressions that scandalised the Victorian era. The tales include murders and violent crimes but also feature scandals that merely amused the Victorians.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Doesn’t question it’s sources enough
- By Emily Stoneking on 11-27-18
By: Michelle Morgan
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The Girl on the Velvet Swing
- Sex, Murder, and Madness at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century
- By: Simon Baatz
- Narrated by: Christine Lakin
- Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 181
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 166
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Story4 out of 5 stars 165
In 1901 Evelyn Nesbit, a chorus girl, dined alone with the architect Stanford White in his townhouse on 24th Street in New York. Nesbit, just 16 years old, had recently moved to the city. White was 47. As the foremost architect of his day, he was a celebrity. She told no one that White raped her that night until, several years later, she confided in Harry Thaw, the millionaire playboy who would later become her husband. Thaw, thirsting for revenge, shot and killed White in 1906 before hundreds of theatergoers during a performance in Madison Square Garden.
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1 out of 5 stars
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"The Girl" is barely in this book
- By Polly L. Mccall on 07-12-18
By: Simon Baatz
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American Brutus
- John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiracies
- By: Michael Kauffman
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 21 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 112
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 97
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 99
In American Brutus, popular historian Michael W. Kauffman delivers a history that reads more like a best-selling novel. This definitive masterwork dispels commonly held myths and reveals the truth about John Wilkes Booth. Luring Southern sympathizers into a “noble” presidential kidnapping, Booth stunned his puzzled pawns by murdering Lincoln. From Booth’s early life and acting career to his escape and death, this meticulously researched book re-examines it all using a wealth of primary sources.
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4 out of 5 stars
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informative
- By Sue Ogle on 11-27-20
By: Michael Kauffman
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City of Light, City of Poison
- Murder, Magic, and the First Police Chief of Paris
- By: Holly Tucker
- Narrated by: Kate Reading
- Length: 9 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 698
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 622
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Story4 out of 5 stars 620
Appointed to conquer the "crime capital of the world", the first police chief of Paris faces an epidemic of murder in the late 1600s. Assigned by Louis XIV, Nicolas de La Reynie begins by clearing the streets of filth and installing lanterns throughout Paris, turning it into the City of Light. The fearless La Reynie pursues criminals through the labyrinthine neighborhoods of the city. He unearths a tightly knit cabal of poisoners, witches, and renegade priests.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great historic non-fiction
- By Josette Luvmour on 07-01-17
By: Holly Tucker
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The Wicked Boy
- The Mystery of a Victorian Child Murderer
- By: Kate Summerscale
- Narrated by: Corrie James
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 332
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 298
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Story4 out of 5 stars 297
Early in the morning of Monday, July 8, 1895, 13-year-old Robert Coombes and his 12-year-old brother, Nattie, set out from their small, yellow-brick terraced house in East London to watch a cricket match at Lord's. Their father had gone to sea the previous Friday, the boys told their neighbors, and their mother was visiting her family in Liverpool. Over the next 10 days, Robert and Nattie spent extravagantly, pawning their parents' valuables to fund trips to the theatre and the seaside. But as the sun beat down on the Coombes house, a strange smell began to emanate.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Amazing True Story
- By Lisa Belle on 01-08-17
By: Kate Summerscale
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Six Women of Salem
- The Untold Story of the Accused and Their Accusers in the Salem Witch Trials
- By: Marilynne K. Roach
- Narrated by: Kate Reading
- Length: 17 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 181
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 159
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Story4 out of 5 stars 159
Six Women of Salem is the first work to use the lives of a select number of representative women as a microcosm to illuminate the larger crisis of the Salem witch trials. By the end of the trials, beyond the 20 who were executed and the five who perished in prison, 207 individuals had been accused, 74 had been "afflicted", 32 had officially accused their fellow neighbors, and 255 ordinary people had been inexorably drawn into that ruinous and murderous vortex, and this doesn't include the religious, judicial, and governmental leaders.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Robotic Reader
- By DangerousBlossom on 12-15-18
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Serpentine
- By: Thomas Thompson
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 24 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 122
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 107
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 108
There was no pattern to the murders, no common thread other than the fact that the victims were all vacationers, robbed of their possessions, and slain in seemingly random crimes. Authorities across three continents and a dozen nations had no idea they were all looking for the same man: Charles Sobhraj, aka "The Serpent". A handsome Frenchman of Vietnamese and Indian origin, Sobhraj targeted backpackers on the "hippie trail" between Europe and South Asia. A master of deception, he used his powerful intellect and considerable sex appeal to lure naive travelers into a life of crime.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Good Story / Weak Narration
- By Chandelle on 10-09-18
By: Thomas Thompson
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The Assassin's Accomplice
- Mary Surratt and the Plot to Kill Abraham Lincoln
- By: Kate Clifford Larson
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 52
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 51
In The Assassin’s Accomplice, historian Kate Clifford Larson tells the gripping story of Mary Surratt, a little-known conspirator in the plot to kill Abraham Lincoln, and the first woman ever to be executed by the federal government. A Confederate sympathizer, Surratt ran the boarding house where the conspirators met to plan Lincoln’s assassination. Set against the backdrop of the Civil War, The Assassin’s Accomplice tells the intricate story of the Lincoln conspiracy through the eyes of its only female participant, offering a fresh perspective on America’s most famous murder.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Did She or Didn't She
- By c a cornelius on 06-04-21
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Resurrection
- By: Leo Tolstoy
- Narrated by: Neville Jason
- Length: 20 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 433
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 397
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 396
When Prince Dmitri Nekhludov is called for jury duty on a murder case, he little knows how the experience will change his life. Faced with the accused, a prostitute, he recognizes Katusha, the young girl he seduced and abandoned many years before, and realizes his responsibility for the life of degradation she has been forced to lead. His determination to make amends leads him into the darkest reaches of the Tsarist prison system, and to the beginning of his spiritual regeneration.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Same Mood, The Same Power, Resurrected
- By Darwin8u on 11-01-15
By: Leo Tolstoy
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American Scoundrel
- The Life of the Notorious Civil War General Dan Sickles
- By: Tom Kenneally
- Narrated by: Humphrey Bower
- Length: 13 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 49
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 44
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 45
On the last, cold Sunday of February 1859, Daniel Sickles shot his wife's lover in Washington's Lafayette Square, just across from the White House. This is the story of that killing and its repercussions. Thomas Keneally brilliantly recreates an extraordinary period, when women were punished for violating codes of society that did not bind men. And the caddish, good-looking Dan Sickles personifies the extremes of the era.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Interesting Good Listen
- By Kindle Customer on 01-10-24
By: Tom Kenneally
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Snow-Storm in August
- The Passions That Sparked Washington City's First Race Riot in the Violent Summer of 1835
- By: Jefferson Morley
- Narrated by: Peter Jay Fernandez
- Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 37
Editor and investigative reporter Jefferson Morley has been widely published in national periodicals and is the author of the critically acclaimed nonfiction work Our Man in Mexico. An eye-opening look at Washington’s first race riot, Snow-Storm in August also offers revealing profiles of Arthur Bowen, the slave blamed for the riot, and “Star Spangled Banner” lyricist Francis Scott Key, a defender of slavery who sought capital punishment for Bowen.
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3 out of 5 stars
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An interesting
- By BDHumbert on 08-27-18
By: Jefferson Morley
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The Gilded Age
- By: Mark Twain
- Narrated by: Robin Field
- Length: 19 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 62
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 57
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 58
First published in 1873, The Gilded Age is both a biting satire and a revealing portrait of post-Civil War America - an age of corruption when crooked land speculators, ruthless bankers, and dishonest politicians voraciously took advantage of the nation's peacetime optimism. With his characteristic wit and perception, Mark Twain and his collaborator, Charles Dudley Warner, attack the greed, lust, and naiveté of their own time in a work that endures as a valuable social document and one of America's most important satirical novels.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Great Story, but Audio Quality Not Always Good
- By BethGA on 02-27-24
By: Mark Twain
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The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher
- The Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective
- By: Kate Summerscale
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 968
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 827
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Story4 out of 5 stars 824
In 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. At 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 that Scotland Yard sent its best man to investigate, Inspector Jonathan Whicher.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Tragic Murder at dawn of detective bureau
- By Kindle Customer on 08-20-14
By: Kate Summerscale