Pretty Jane and the Viper of Kidbrooke Lane

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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.

Reviews

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 *

Author Bio

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.