"Bloomsbury presents The Wicked Boy by Kate Summerscale, read by Ethan Reid.
FROM BRITAIN’S TOP-SELLING TRUE CRIME WRITER
'The queen of Victorian true crime is back' MAIL ON SUNDAY
SHORTLISTED FOR THE CWA GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION
On 8 July 1895, thirteen-year-old Robert Coombes and his younger brother Nattie set out from their East London home to watch a cricket match. Over the next ten days they spend extravagantly, visiting the theatre and eating out. The boys tell neighbours their father has gone to sea, and their mother to visit family in Liverpool. But when a strange smell begins to emanate from the house, the police are called. What they find throws the press into a frenzy – and the boys into a highly publicised trial.
‘An accomplished feat of research and storytelling . . . Wrapping controversial issues into a tense, fluent narrative’ HILARY MANTEL
'Riveting . . . Once again the author proves a subtle pathologist, her scalpel slicing away the skin of late-Victorian Britain’ DOMINIC SANDBROOK, SUNDAY TIMES BOOKS OF THE YEAR
‘A remarkably heartening story’ JOHN PRESTON, DAILY MAIL
‘An extraordinary book which will stay with you’ DAILY EXPRESS
‘It would be impossible to read this dry-eyed’ SPECTATOR
Note: There is a chance the book cover you receive may differ from the cover displayed here C 2016 Kate Summerscale P 2026 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC"
"Bloomsbury presents The Peepshow by Kate Summerscale, read by Nicola Walker.
FROM BRITAIN'S TOP-SELLING TRUE CRIME WRITER
WINNER OF THE CWA ALCS GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION
A BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR: The Times/Sunday Times, Financial Times, Spectator, Independent, Tablet and New Statesman
'I loved it' Richard Osman
'Shattering' Val McDermid
'Gripping' Sarah Waters
In 1953, the bodies of three young women are found by a tenant in the walls of a Notting Hill house. He tells the police that he chanced upon them while trying to put up a shelf for his transistor radio.
As a series of further horrors are discovered, the eyes of a nation turn to 10 Rillington Place.
In this riveting tale of violence, misogyny and tabloid frenzy, Kate Summerscale lifts the veil on what really happened inside the house - and suggests a new solution to one of the twentieth century's most notorious crimes.
LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2025 C 2024 Kate Summerscale P 2024 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC"
"Bloomsbury presents The Haunting of Alma Fielding by Kate Summerscale, read by David Morrissey.
FROM BRITAIN’S TOP-SELLING TRUE CRIME WRITER
'A wonderful book' HILARY MANTEL
'Gothic, dark and scandalous' SUNDAY TIMES
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2020 BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE
LONGLISTED FOR THE CWA GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION
It is 1938. As the shadow of fascism darkens over Europe, strange things are happening in Alma Fielding’s suburban home in Croydon. Crockery flies off the shelves; stolen rings appear on Alma’s fingers; and white mice scuttle out of her handbag.
Nandor Fodor – chief ghost hunter for the International Institute for Psychical Research – arrives on the scene, determined to crack the case. As Fodor’s obsession deepens, and Alma becomes ever more disturbed, the pair find themselves in a treacherous battle of wills . . .
'Prepare not to see much broad daylight, literal or metaphorical, for days if you read this’ THE TIMES
'Nobody is better at unpicking stories of ghosts and murder than Kate Summerscale … Will stay with you for weeks’ DOMINIC SANDBROOK, SUNDAY TIMES BOOKS OF THE YEAR
'As gripping as a novel. An engaging, unsettling, deeply satisfying read’ SARAH WATERS
‘A detective novel, a ghost yarn and a historical record rolled into one . . . Electrifying’ i-PAPER
‘It would be impossible to read this dry-eyed’ SPECTATOR C 2020 Kate Summerscale P 2020 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC"
"Bloomsbury presents The Queen of Whale Cay by Kate Summerscale, read by Lissa Berry.
'Jaw-droppingly amazing' DAILY MAIL
WINNER OF THE SOMERSET MAUGHAM AWARD
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
Born in 1900 to a promiscuous American oil heiress and a British army captain, Marion Barbara Carstairs realised very early on that she was not like most girls. Liberated by war work in the First World War, Marion reinvented herself as ‘Joe’. She dressed in men’s clothes, smoked cigars and cheroots, tattooed her arms and became Britain’s most celebrated female speed-boat racer – the ‘fastest woman on water’.
Yet Joe tired of the limelight in 1934 and retired to the Bahamian island of Whale Cay. There she fashioned her own kingdom, where she threw riotous parties at which Hollywood actresses and British royalty were among the guests. Although her lovers included screen sirens such as Marlene Dietrich,
the real love of Joe’s life was a small boy-doll named Lord Tod Wadley, to whom she remained devoted throughout her remarkable life. She died, aged 93, in 1993
'A small jewel of a biography' NEW YORKER
'Fascinating, hilarious and deliciously subversive' LITERARY REVIEW
'A biography that sparkles with enthusiastic research and empathetic writing' SUNDAY TIMES
'A wonderful account of a truly extraordinary life' MAIL ON SUNDAY P 2019 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC C 1997 Kate Summerscale"
"Bloomsbury presents Mrs Robinson's Disgrace by Kate Summerscale, read by Stephanie Racine.
FROM BRITAIN’S TOP-SELLING TRUE CRIME WRITER
'Extraordinary' PHILIPPA GREGORY, DAILY TELEGRAPH
'Grippingly suspenseful' SUNDAY TIMES
When the married Isabella Robinson was introduced to the dashing Edward Lane at a party in 1850, she was utterly enchanted. He was ‘fascinating’, she told her diary, before chastising herself for being so susceptible to a man’s charms. But a wish had taken hold of her, and she was to find it hard to shake. . .
In one of the most notorious divorce cases of the nineteenth century, Isabella Robinson’s scandalous secrets were exposed to the world. Kate Summerscale brings vividly to life a frustrated Victorian wife’s longing for passion and learning, companionship and love, in a society clinging to rigid ideas about marriage and female sexuality.
‘I’m all admiration: she has turned a sepia photograph, curling and tattered, into a film that runs through the mind in glorious and unimpeachable Technicolor’ RACHEL COOKE, OBSERVER
'Summerscale strikes non-fiction gold for the third time' INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY
'Moving, compelling and brilliantly executed' DAILY TELEGRAPH BOOKS OF THE YEAR
‘Summerscale’s brilliance lies not only in recognising the power of a particular story, but in charting,
with beautiful precision, its strange echoes and reverberations’ CRAIG BROWN, MAIL ON SUNDAY"
"Bloomsbury presents this Unabridged version of The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher by Kate Summerscale, read by Jessica Ball.
FROM BRITAIN’S TOP-SELLING TRUE CRIME WRITER
WINNER OF THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE
WINNER OF THE SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION
THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER
A RICHARD AND JUDY BOOK CLUB PICK
GALAXY BOOK OF THE YEAR, BRITISH BOOK AWARDS
'A classic' JOHN LE CARRÉ
'Terrific' IAN RANKIN
It is midnight on 30 June 1860 and all is quiet in the Kent family’s elegant house in Road, Wiltshire. The next morning, however, they wake to find that their youngest son has been murdered. Even worse, the guilty party is surely one of their number – the house was bolted from the inside.
As Jack Whicher, the most celebrated detective of his day, arrives to track down the killer, the murder provokes national hysteria at the thought of what might be festering behind the doors of respectable middle-class homes.
A body, a detective, a country house steeped in secrets and a whole family of suspects – this true story is the original Victorian whodunnit.
'Gripping, unputdownable' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
'Absolutely riveting' SARAH WATERS, GUARDIAN
'Nothing less than a masterpiece' CRAIG BROWN, MAIL ON SUNDAY"
"It is a summer's night in 1860. In an elegant detached 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. The household reverberates with shock, not least because the guilty party is surely still among them. Jack Whicher of Scotland Yard, the most celebrated detective of his day, reaches Road Hill House a fortnight later. He faces an unenviable task: to solve a case in which the grieving family are the suspects.
The murder provokes national hysteria. The thought of what might be festering behind the closed doors of respectable middle-class homes - scheming servants, rebellious children, insanity, jealousy, loneliness and loathing - arouses fear and a kind of excitement. But when Whicher reaches his shocking conclusion there is uproar and bewilderment.
A true story that inspired a generation of writers such as Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens and Arthur Conan Doyle, this has all the hallmarks of the classic murder mystery - a body; a detective; a country house steeped in secrets. In The Suspicions of Mr Whicher Kate Summerscale untangles the facts behind this notorious case, bringing it back to vivid, extraordinary life."
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