Mr Briggs' Hat
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(A) thrilling book, which reads at times like a good Victorian novel... an utterly compelling did-he-do-it (Sunday Times )
Deploying her skill as a historian, Colquhoun turns a single curious murder case into a fascinatingly quirky portrait of the underside of mid-Victorian London. I found it unputdownable (Daily Telegraph )
Kate Colquhoun is a fine, robust writer who makes the most of its every twist and turn (Mail on Sunday )
With a storyteller's instinct for colour and suspense Kate Colquhoun has brilliantly recreated the five-month period from Thomas Briggs' death to Muller's execution (Daily Express )
Kate Colquhoun's irreproachable unpicking of the case is meticulous, patient, thorough and measured (Independent )
Deploying her skill as a historian, Colquhoun turns a single curious murder case into a fascinatingly quirky portrait of the underside of mid-Victorian London. I found it unputdownable (Daily Telegraph )
Kate Colquhoun is a fine, robust writer who makes the most of its every twist and turn (Mail on Sunday )
With a storyteller's instinct for colour and suspense Kate Colquhoun has brilliantly recreated the five-month period from Thomas Briggs' death to Muller's execution (Daily Express )
Kate Colquhoun's irreproachable unpicking of the case is meticulous, patient, thorough and measured (Independent )
Book Description
The fascinating story of the first ever railway murder
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
40 of 42 people found the following review helpful
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
Mr Thomas Briggs was an upstanding member of society. On a summer Saturday morning, he left his home for work at his bank. Finishing early, he ate dinner with his niece and then returned home on the train at 8pm. At that time first class carriages had separate compartments, two rows of seats facing each other, without any corridor to go from one carriage to another. Questions had already been raised about what a person could do if they were taken ill or needed assistance. What nobody expected was for a first class passenger, travelling on a short journey home,to be murdered. However, that is exactly what happened to Mr Briggs. When the train stopped, passengers alerted train staff to the fact that the carriage had bloodstains on the seat and the door. There was an empty bag, a walking stick and a crushed hat - later found not to belong to Mr Briggs. The carriage door was locked and the police called, but there was no sign of either an attacker or a victim. Mr Briggs was later found thrown from the train and he never regained consciousness before dying.
The crime was shocking, unprecedented and sensational. It was felt that nobody was safe and the police were under pressure to solve the mystery quickly. Inspector Tanner was given the difficult task of solving the crime. Everything seemed to lead to a dead end until a silversmith, appropriately called John Death, identified Mr Briggs watch chain which was brought to his shop and exchanged for another. Tanner was quickly on the trail of a possible assailant and the chase was on.
I do not want to give away what happens in this wonderful book, but it is just like following the criminal investigation as it happened. The author has brought to life the characters and there is a real sense of urgency and concern about false leads, whether there is enough evidence and whether the man they are chasing is simply a victim of circumstances or the murderer. The book has suspicious foreign suspects, thrilling transatlantic chases and is an exciting and interesting read. The author has done a wonderful job of recreating the entire mystery. And what, exactly, happened to Mr Briggs's hat? Highly recommended - this is history at its best.
The crime was shocking, unprecedented and sensational. It was felt that nobody was safe and the police were under pressure to solve the mystery quickly. Inspector Tanner was given the difficult task of solving the crime. Everything seemed to lead to a dead end until a silversmith, appropriately called John Death, identified Mr Briggs watch chain which was brought to his shop and exchanged for another. Tanner was quickly on the trail of a possible assailant and the chase was on.
I do not want to give away what happens in this wonderful book, but it is just like following the criminal investigation as it happened. The author has brought to life the characters and there is a real sense of urgency and concern about false leads, whether there is enough evidence and whether the man they are chasing is simply a victim of circumstances or the murderer. The book has suspicious foreign suspects, thrilling transatlantic chases and is an exciting and interesting read. The author has done a wonderful job of recreating the entire mystery. And what, exactly, happened to Mr Briggs's hat? Highly recommended - this is history at its best.
24 of 27 people found the following review helpful
Format:Kindle Edition
On 9th July 1864, a murder took place that captured the interest and the imagination of the British public. The victim was Thomas Briggs, a banker in the City, whose body was discovered on railway tracks of the North London Railway line, his watch and hat missing, the first-class carriage he occupied on his journey left spattered with blood and a hat belonging to someone else. What is notable about the incident is that it was the first killing to ever take place on a British Railway, in an enclosed carriage that had no entrance or connecting passageway, but rather only a direct entry from a station platform.
The notoriety of the murder is heightened further by the Victorian public's new-found appetite for grubby crime stories being related in sensational literature, and in the novelty of the progress of a real-life case being relayed in the now readily available newspapers and periodicals. The fascination for the details of the case reaches even greater proportions when it is learned that the chief suspect, a German tailor, has left the country on a slow-boat across the Atlantic. A police detective is dispatched on a faster ship to arrive in the still expanding New York before the suspect, to apprehend him and extradite him back for trial. The Victorian public avidly follow the exciting course of events that unfold before their eyes.
As, nearly 150 years later, should the modern reader following the case as related in fascinating detail by Kate Colquhoun. As you would expect, the book is thoroughly researched - not just for the particulars of the case of Thomas Briggs, intriguing as it is as a murder-mystery, but also for the effort that has gone into putting it into the context of British society during the Victorian era. In addition to what the case tells us about the newly formed police service, the early forensic science of the period and the workings of the judicial system, much is also revealed about the nature of the public, class differences and international tensions, the nature of the press and the literature of the period.
While there is no skimping on historical research and presentation of all the relevant facts pertaining to the case and the social situation that it takes place in, Mr Briggs' Hat is never dull or academic, but highly readable and no less thrilling than any fictional work, covering every angle of what remains an intriguing and involving real-life murder-mystery.
The notoriety of the murder is heightened further by the Victorian public's new-found appetite for grubby crime stories being related in sensational literature, and in the novelty of the progress of a real-life case being relayed in the now readily available newspapers and periodicals. The fascination for the details of the case reaches even greater proportions when it is learned that the chief suspect, a German tailor, has left the country on a slow-boat across the Atlantic. A police detective is dispatched on a faster ship to arrive in the still expanding New York before the suspect, to apprehend him and extradite him back for trial. The Victorian public avidly follow the exciting course of events that unfold before their eyes.
As, nearly 150 years later, should the modern reader following the case as related in fascinating detail by Kate Colquhoun. As you would expect, the book is thoroughly researched - not just for the particulars of the case of Thomas Briggs, intriguing as it is as a murder-mystery, but also for the effort that has gone into putting it into the context of British society during the Victorian era. In addition to what the case tells us about the newly formed police service, the early forensic science of the period and the workings of the judicial system, much is also revealed about the nature of the public, class differences and international tensions, the nature of the press and the literature of the period.
While there is no skimping on historical research and presentation of all the relevant facts pertaining to the case and the social situation that it takes place in, Mr Briggs' Hat is never dull or academic, but highly readable and no less thrilling than any fictional work, covering every angle of what remains an intriguing and involving real-life murder-mystery.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Mr Briggs' Hat is a wonderful account of a truly fascinating murder case. Kate Colquhoun delivers the facts with such incredible clarity, yet tells them in a way which would rival any great novelist, creating a perfect balance of evidence and story-telling. The meticulous research is actually breathtaking. In the hands of a less-skilled writer, I might not have cared quite so much about Mr Briggs, but Ms Colquhoun writes in such a way that I felt as though I were unconvering the truth alongside her, and the discovery of new witnesses and changes in direction meant the pages of the book almost turned themselves. By the end of the story, I cared so much, I wanted to march into the courtroom and plead with the jury to see sense.
This is also so much more than a tale of murder. It's a beautiful insight into Victorian life; a brilliant account of man's reflexive fear of change, of a population fragmented by class and politics, and of a time which found itself on the edge of a moral quandary. It's the story of a man whose fate will be determined, not just by the evidence, but by the attitudes of the society in which he finds himself.
Perfect.
This is also so much more than a tale of murder. It's a beautiful insight into Victorian life; a brilliant account of man's reflexive fear of change, of a population fragmented by class and politics, and of a time which found itself on the edge of a moral quandary. It's the story of a man whose fate will be determined, not just by the evidence, but by the attitudes of the society in which he finds himself.
Perfect.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Not bad... but why give the verdict away half way through?
This is a book that could be super, but which sadly misses the mark in a few places.
Firstly why give the game away half way through the book? Read more
Firstly why give the game away half way through the book? Read more
Published 3 days ago by kirc
Reads like a history essay
I was really disappointed with this book, it is repetative and unnessessarily long, the captions on the photographs halfway through tell you the jurys verdict, I found it to be an... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Genie17
Fantastic visit to the past
A very well researched book and at the same time a very good read. Paints a very clear picture of the period and somehow keeps you in some suspense despite the inevitability of the... Read more
Published 2 months ago by S. Young
Silly and disappointing
I agree - not a patch on the excellent Mr Whicher. This is a book about a murder on a train. Yet, just two paragraphs in the author reveals that she,and her editors, don't know the... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Lester, Dorset
A real life Victorian detective story
The book starts with a page-turning account of the murder of a well-to-do elderly man, Mr Briggs, in a first class train carriage on his way home from work. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Bluebell
Perfectly good, if a little pedestrian
You will probably buy this if you liked The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: or the Murder at Road Hill House and/or The Magnificent Spilsbury and the Case of the Brides in the Bath. Read more
Published 5 months ago by bookelephant
A light and accessible account of an intriguing historical event
The most disappointing part of this book is the promise on the cover of 'a sensational account' of Britain's first railway murder. Sensational? Read more
Published 5 months ago by Alison McVey
Suspicious follower
If, like me, you enjoyed the Suspicions of Mr Whicker, then this is more in the same vein - but by another author and publisher aware of a market for true life Reality Victoriana. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Elizabeth OB
Victorian Whodunnit
Mr Briggs' Hat: A Sensational Account of Britain's First Railway MurderThis book is turning out to be an exciting true crime Victorian murder mystery. Read more
Published 10 months ago by Mr. A. D. Budworth
Good In Parts
This is a book of two halves;it only gets interesting post-conviction when the author discusses capital punishment and social mores. Read more
Published 10 months ago by Joanna Smith
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