The suspicions of Mr Whicher or the murder at Road Hill House

It is a summer’s night in 1860. In an elegant Georgian house in the village of Road, Wiltshire, all is quiet. Behind shuttered windows the Kent family lies sound asleep. At some point after midnight a dog barks. The family wakes the next morning to a horrific discovery: an unimaginably gruesome murder has taken place in their home. When Jack Whicher of Scotland Yard, the most celebrated detective of his day, reaches Road Hill House, he faces an unenviable task: to solve a case in which the grieving family are the suspects. This true story has all the hallmarks of the classic murder mystery - a body; a detective; a country house steeped in secrets. Kate Summerscale untangles the facts, bringing the case back to vivid, extraordinary life.