The Peepshow: The Murders at Rillington Place“A trove of thrilling material . . . skillfully examines the racism, sexism, economic privation and class prejudices that permeated postwar England . . . There’s so much to admire in this engaging, deeply researched book.” —The New York Times Book Review “An absorbing portrait of post-WWII London.” —Booklist *A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice * Named a Best Book of 2024 by FT * Nominated for the Women's prize for nonfiction* From the Edgar Award–winning author of The Haunting of Alma Fielding, the tale of two journalists competing to solve the notorious Christie murders in postwar London In March 1953, London police discovered the bodies of three young women hidden in a wall at 10 Rillington Place, a dingy rowhouse in Notting Hill. On searching the building, they found another body beneath the floorboards, then an array of human bones in the garden. They launched a nationwide manhunt for the tenant of the ground-floor apartment, a softly spoken former policeman named Reg Christie. But they had already investigated a double murder at 10 Rillington Place three years before, and the killer was hanged. Did they get the wrong man? The story was an instant sensation. The star reporter Harry Procter chased after the scoop on Christie. The eminent crime writer Fryn Tennyson Jesse begged her editor to let her cover the case. To Harry and Fryn, Christie seemed a new kind of murderer: he was vacant, impersonal, a creature of a brutish postwar world. Christie liked to watch women, they discovered, and he liked to kill them. They realized that he might also have engineered a terrible miscarriage of justice. In this riveting true story, Kate Summerscale mines the archives to uncover the lives of Christie’s victims, the tabloid frenzy that their deaths inspired, and the truth about what happened inside the house. What she finds sheds fascinating light on the origins of our fixation with true crime—and suggests a new solution to one of the most notorious cases of the century. |
Contents
In the walls | 3 |
The man of a thousand doubles | 21 |
Dreams of dominance | 37 |
The washhouse | 57 |
My Sweetest Darling | 77 |
The rooms upstairs | 97 |
An unearthing | 113 |
A symbol rather than a girl | 131 |
The rope deckchair | 165 |
Gassings | 181 |
Into the fall | 197 |
The back room | 213 |
A dear little baby | 225 |
With these dirty hands | 239 |
Dust and rubble | 253 |
Notes | 269 |
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The Peepshow: The thrilling new page-turner from Britain’s top-selling true ... Kate Summerscale No preview available - 2024 |
Common terms and phrases
abortion Agnes April asked baby Beaton Beryl and Geraldine Beryl Evans bodies British Brixton prison café Cecil Beaton child Christie told Christie's claimed confession court crime Curtis-Bennett Daily Mirror daughter death defence Derek Derek Bentley Ethel Christie Evans's flat Fleet Street front Fryn Fryn's garden gassed Geraldine Evans girl Harry Procter Harry's Heald Hill Hobson husband InIn Jesse papers Jim Hodge Joan Kensington Post killed Beryl kitchen lived London looked March Maureen MEPO Miss Spain mother murder neighbours Neville Heath newspaper night officer Old Bailey PCOM Pear Tree Cottage PEEPSHOW photographs pregnant prostitutes Reg Christie reporter Rillington Place Rita Nelson Road Roy Arthur Ruth Scotland Yard Scott Henderson seemed sexual story strangled Street of Disillusion Sunday Pictorial Tennyson Jesse thethe Tim Evans told the police Tottie trial victims washhouse week wife woman women young