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Edwardian Murder: Ightham and the Morpeth Train Robbery
 
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Edwardian Murder: Ightham and the Morpeth Train Robbery (Hardcover)

by Diane Janes (Author)
4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
RRP: £14.99
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Product details

  • Hardcover: 306 pages
  • Publisher: Sutton Publishing Ltd; First Edition edition (21 Jun 2007)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0750947802
  • ISBN-13: 978-0750947800
  • Product Dimensions: 23.8 x 16 x 3.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 202,420 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Product Description

Caroline Luard was shot near Ightham in Kent in 1908. Within weeks, her husband, the respectable Major-General Charles Luard, committed suicide. It was rumoured that he killed himself following a tip-off from the local chief constable that he was about to be arrested. In 1910, John Nisbet, a colliery cashier, was robbed and murdered on a train in Northumberland. Three days after the crime, police arrested a man called John Dickman, who was subsequently executed. The conviction, however, relied on circumstantial evidence. In 1950, C. H. Norman, who acted as official shorthand writer at Dickman's trial, claimed that Dickman was framed for Nisbet's murder, because the judge and prosecuting council believed him guilty of the murder of Caroline Luard. Is it conceivable that John Dickman was guilty of both murders? Or was he framed, and unjustly executed? This new book provides the definitive account of both murders. Including previously unpublished evidence, it is a compelling read, vividly recreating the atmosphere of the Edwardian age. These true crimes bear all the hallmarks of traditional English period murder: steam trains, revolvers, an isolated summerhouse, retired army officers, parlour maids, to say nothing of conspiracy theories, murder, suicide, an execution and a love story.

About the Author

Diane Janes has lived in the north of England for most of her adult life, and in the Lake District for the past six years. She is a full-time writer of crime novels and investigative non-fiction. Her novel Moonshadow was highly commended in the 2006 CWA Debut Daggers Award for unpublished works.

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Edwardian Murder: Ightham and the Morpeth Train Robbery
81% buy the item featured on this page:
Edwardian Murder: Ightham and the Morpeth Train Robbery 4.8 out of 5 stars (4)
£9.94
Poisonous Lies: The Croydon Arsenic Mystery (Great Unsolved Murders/20th C)
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Poisonous Lies: The Croydon Arsenic Mystery (Great Unsolved Murders/20th C) 3.5 out of 5 stars (2)
£9.99
Edwardian Murder: Ightham & the Morpeth Train Robbery
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Edwardian Murder: Ightham & the Morpeth Train Robbery
£11.69
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Customer Reviews

4 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.8 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars This book sets the standard for historical crime studies, 31 Mar 2008
By Petronius (Sevenoaks, Kent, UK) - See all my reviews
Look in any bookshop and you will see a shelf of "true crime" books. Sadly, many of them are sensationalist and badly written "scissors and paste" jobs by authors who have conducted little or no original research.

This book is different. Diane Janes has carried out extensive research into the primary sources, including original court records, contemporary newspaper reports, and police and home office files. She grounds her text in the evidence, and provides thorough footnotes to link her narrative to its sources. There are no made-up conversations or imaginative reconstructions masquerading as fact.

Yet this book is far from being a dry academic work. It is an absorbing read, and I found it almost impossible to put down.

Most books about the past deal either with broad social trends or with the lives of the political and social elite. Murder trials give an unusual opportunity to learn about the everyday lives of ordinary people. In this book, a short train journey taken by two businessmen, and the afternoon walk of an elderly couple are recreated in astonishing detail, as are the preceding and subsequent lives of the principal characters and those who met or saw them on their fateful journeys. Janes employs other sources, of a type generally used for family or local history, such as birth, marriage and death records, parish registers, property records and local newspapers, to reveal previously unconsidered information about the people involved, and build a fuller picture of events.

The book is carefully structured to allow the reader to follow the cases as they progressed while overlaying Janes' thoughtful analysis and then, based on her research, bringing out features of the cases that were not apparent to the contemporary audience. The author's analysis of the Morpeth trial is particularly good, and her comments on the strengths and (notably) weaknesses of the performances of the barristers involved are highly perceptive.

I believe that this is the author's first book of this type and I sincerely hope that she will go on to apply her skills to other historical crimes.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Edwardian Murder - a very good read, 26 May 2008
By C. P. Flint (Windermere, Cumbria) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Diane Janes has written an intriguing book - on several levels. It is not simply a well researched murder mystery, looking in great detail at investigations into two murders that took place at opposite ends of Edwardian England, it is also provides an illuminating insight into the social history of the period - from rail travel to work environments, from the business of mining in the northeast to class structure. Had Diane Janes been, judge, juror or coroner at these cases, the trial and inquests that that she describes would have been more effective and just - in her book she asks the questions that should have been asked and probes where others avoided going. An interesting and worthwhile read, I look forward to her next foray into investigative non-fiction.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Very good indeed, 28 Aug 2009
By Junius (London, Middlesex United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
This is a very good book and a model for all those writing in detail about real life murders, especially where there is controversy about those responsible.

In the case of the 1908 murder, no one was ever charged with shooting Mrs Luard, and in 1910, although John Dickman was hanged for the murder of Nisbet, there are some who question whether he was guilty.

The author here provides a detailed account of both killings, sometimes thought to be connected, and the evidence used is most impressive indeed.

Unlike most of those writing about the 1888 murders, she does not indulge in wild theories, and that is very welcome.

My interest in this is as a crime historian and someone who recently wrote about the 1910 murder. I wish I had known about her book earlier.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable and intriguing
This book is a real page turner - a fantastic piece of research, but eminently readable. In a genre which sometimes suffers from shoddy research or less than brilliant writing,... Read more
Published 5 months ago by CJ

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