Pretty Jane and the Viper of Kidbrooke Lane: A True Story of Victorian Law and Disorder

Murphy (Shooting Victoria) displays a novelist’s gifts in this fascinating true crime account of an obscure 1871 London murder. Early one April morning (“just as definition and color began to bleed into the amorphous black and gray”), a constable patrolling a deserted footpath came upon a hideously wounded woman, who cried “ ‘let me die,’ ” before falling unconscious. It took several days for the unidentified woman to succumb to her injuries, and it was several days after that when William Trott recognized the body as his niece, Jane Maria Clouson, who was working as a maid at the time of her death. When the autopsy revealed that Jane was pregnant, Jane’s relatives disclosed that she had spoken of a relationship with Edmund Pook, the son of her employer. After prematurely arresting Pook, the police scrambled to keep the case against him alive, despite its basis in hearsay evidence. Murphy captures the drama of the flawed investigation, and the legal proceedings that followed. His solution to the crime—based on current forensic science—is likely to be the last word on the case. Agent: Charlie Olsen, Inkwell Management. (Apr.)