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'The perfect thriller' Elle 'Immensely gripping' Sophie Hannah
'Gripping, creepy and very addictive!' BA Paris 'He's so handsome
and clever and romantic. I just wished he hadn't forced Tilda under
the water and held her there so long.' Callie loves Tilda. She's
her sister, after all. And she's beautiful and successful. Tilda
loves Felix. He's her husband. Successful and charismatic, he is
also controlling, suspicious and, possibly, dangerous. Still, Tilda
loves Felix. And Callie loves Tilda. Very, very much. So she's
determined to save her. But the cost could destroy them all...
Sometimes we love too much.
'Was rich Mrs Gertrude Hullett murdered at her luxurious 15-room
home on Beachy Head? Detectives are tonight trying to establish the
cause of the 50-year-old widow's sudden death . . . ' Daily Mail,
1957 In July 1957, the press descended in droves on the south-coast
town of Eastbourne. An inquest had just been opened into the
suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of Mrs Bobbie
Hullett. She died after months of apparent barbiturate abuse - the
drugs prescribed to calm her nerves by her close friend and doctor,
Dr John Bodkin Adams. The inquest brought to the surface years of
whispered suspicion that had swept through the tea rooms, shops and
nursing homes of the town. The doctor's alarming influence over the
lives, deaths and finances of wealthy widows had not gone unnoticed
- it was rumoured that the family doctor had been on a killing
spree that spanned decades and involved 300 suspicious cases.
Superintendent Hannam of Scotland Yard was called in to
investigate. The Curious Habits of Dr Adams brilliantly brings to
life the atmosphere of post-war England, and uses a wealth of new
documents to follow the twists and turns of an extraordinary
Scotland Yard murder enquiry. As expertly crafted as the best
period detective novel, this book casts an entertainingly chilling
light on a man reputed to be one of England's most prolific serial
killers.
Bessie Mundy, Alice Burnham and Margaret Lofty are three women with
one thing in common. They are spinsters and are desperate to marry.
Each woman meets a smooth-talking stranger who promises her a
better life. She falls under his spell, and becomes his wife. But
marriage soon turns into a terrifying experience. In the dark
opening months of the First World War, Britain became engrossed by
'The Brides in the Bath' trial. The horror of the killing fields of
the Western Front was the backdrop to a murder story whose elements
were of a different sort. This was evil of an everyday, insidious
kind, played out in lodging houses in seaside towns, in the
confines of married life, and brought to a horrendous climax in
that most intimate of settings - the bathroom. The nation turned to
a young forensic pathologist, Bernard Spilsbury, to explain how it
was that young women were suddenly expiring in their baths. This
was the age of science. In fiction, Sherlock Holmes applied a
scientific mind to solving crimes. In real-life, would Spilsbury be
as infallible as the 'great detective'?
Before Charles and Diana, before the impeachment of Bill Clinton,
and long before the slogan "the personal is political," an
astonishing British royal sex scandal threatened to trigger a
revolution. Its lessons for leadership, popularity, and the impact
of the absurd on history are fascinating. In The Trial of Queen
Caroline, Jane Robins tells the story of one of history's least
happy marriages. The future George IV could not be bothered to meet
Caroline, Princess of Brunswick, a woman "with indelicate
manners...and not very inviting appearance," before she arrived for
the wedding. He was immediately disgusted by her. He far preferred
one of his mistresses, whom he had secretly married in a Catholic
ceremony, knowing that the British state would not recognize the
marriage if it ever came to light. In 1797, just three years after
George and Caroline wed, the couple separated. George wrote to her
that "our inclinations are not in our power, nor should either of
us be held answerable to the other. "As Robins relates, Caroline
took him at his word and proceeded to live exactly as she pleased,
departing for Europe and a life of scandalous associations and
debauched parties. Rumors of Caroline's lifestyle soon reached
George, still Prince of Wales, who determined that she would never
become Queen. To the shock of the nation, he demanded that the
popular Caroline face a trial for adultery. The potential
consequences included a death sentence at worst, and certain
divorce and disgrace. The voice of the popular press, raised in
anger for the first time in Britain, roared in disapproval. Riots
spread in the countryside. The mother of a single, deceased child,
Caroline became the public's favorite martyr. Jane Robins combines
prodigious archival research with a sharp eye for telling detail.
She shows how the rise of the partisan press helped magnify the
story, until, at its peak, Caroline's trial became the story of a
bad marriage that brought England to the very brink of revolution.
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Paperback
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R398
R330
Discovery Miles 3 300
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