Status Updates From The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher

An enjoyable - at times unsettling - book, that seems to attach the growing popularity of detective fiction with the public's fascination over one real-life country-house murder, and all its convolutions. Then it becomes clear that other cases, and publicized detective work in general, led to fiction that could sell like shocking newspaper stories. But this case stands out. I'll finish the book tonight.

So, if this True Crime case in 1860, and the public’s fascination with both detectives and a country-house murder, was enough to lead to fiction of the same sort…well, the part that’s sobering is that fiction avoided this type of victim, a poor 3-year-old. Reality was too horrid, even for the genre that was influenced by it. Toddlers are usually safe in whodunits - replaced by village gossips and nasty, rich uncles.

I don’t usually cue up a book in Currently Reading twice, and then renege on it twice…but I took The Jungle Kids out of its plastic covering this time, and discovered Evan Hunter was giving me short stories. These days, I prefer dipping into short stories between each long work. So, instead, some nonfiction, set in the Victorian Era (which fits two different BookTuber reading events!).