Pretty Jane and the Viper of Kidbrooke Lane

Description

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.

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.

Murphy handles the drama of the courtroom very well... A superb job all round, reconstructing the time and place with the skill one would expect from this author... Thoroughly recommended' * Ripperologist * A thoroughly absorbing read for anyone interested in Victorian crime * Who Do You Think You Are magazine *