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PRETTY JANE AND THE VIPER OF KIDBROOKE LANE
By: Paul Thomas Murphy
Pegasus
April 2016
On Sale: March 31, 2016
279 pages
ISBN: 1605989827
EAN: 9781605989822
Kindle: B012U3WUXO
Hardcover / e-Book
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True Crime | Mystery Historical
A vivid and violent investigation into the first unsolved murder case of the Victorian Era, by the author of the New York Times Notable Book Shooting Victoria. On April 26th, 1871, a police constable walking one of Londonโs remotest beats stumbled upon a brutalized young woman kneeling on a muddy roadโgashes were cloven into her skull; her left cheek was slashed open and smashed- in; her right eye was destroyed; and above it a chunk of the temporal bone had been bashed out. The policeman gaped in horror as the woman held out her hand before collapsing into the mud, muttering โlet me dieโ and slipping into a coma. Five days later, she died, her identity still unknown. Within hours of her discovery on Kidbrooke Lane scores of the officers of Greenwich Division were involved in the investigation, and Scotland Yard had sent one of its top detectives, John Mulvany, to lead it. After five days of gathering evidence, the police discovered the girlโs identity: Jane Maria Clouson, a maid in the house of the renowned Pook family . . . and she was two monthsโ pregnant with Edmund Pookโs child when she died. Murphy carefully reviews the evidence in the light of 21st century forensic science in order to identify Janeโs killer as Edmund Walter Pook. Using a surprisingly abundant collection of primary sources, Murphy aims to recreate the drama of the case as it unfolded, with its many twists and turns, from the discovery of the body to the final crack of the gavelโand beyond.
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