Join us for an insightful evening with award winning author, Kate Summerscale, as she discusses her latest book The Peepshow. As relentlessly compelling as the most page-turning fiction, this true story of murder, sensation and miscarriages of justice in 1950s Britain is another tour de force of historical recreation from the author of The Suspicions of Mr Whicher.
About the Book
London, 1953. Police discover the bodies of three young women hidden in a wall at 10 Rillington Place, a dingy terrace house in Notting Hill. On searching the building, they find another body beneath the floorboards, then an array of human bones in the garden. But they have already investigated a double murder at 10 Rillington Place, three years ago, and the killer was hanged. Did they get the wrong man?
A nationwide manhunt is launched for the tenant of the ground-floor flat, a softly spoken former policeman named Reg Christie. Star reporter Harry Procter chases after the scoop. Celebrated crime writer Fryn Tennyson Jesse begs to be assigned to the case. The story becomes an instant sensation, and with the relentless rise of the tabloid press the public watches on like never before.
In this riveting true story – a history written in her award-winning novelistic style – Kate Summerscale mines the archives to uncover the lives of Christie's victims, the tabloid frenzy that their deaths inspired, and the truth about what happened inside the house. What she finds sheds fascinating light on the origins of our fixation with true crime, and suggests a new solution to one of the most notorious cases of the century…
About the Author
Kate Summerscale was working on the obituaries desk at the Daily Telegraph when she came across the inspiration for her first book. She later went on to develop a ground-breaking new form of narrative non-fiction writing which culminated in her number-one bestselling The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction 2008 and later adapted into an ITV drama starring Peter Capaldi.
She began writing The Peepshow in the spring of 2021, soon after the abduction and murder of Sarah Everard. She hoped that a case from the past might help her understand why a man might choose to kill women – and why we are so fascinated by such stories.
She has judged several literary prizes, including the Booker Prize, and in 2010 she was appointed a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Summerscale has published five previous books with Bloomsbury. To date her books have sold more than 600,000 copies in the UK. She lives in London.
Reviews
“Once more, Kate Summerscale shatters our preconceptions of a classic crime” – Val McDermid
“The Peepshow is a masterclass in true crime storytelling. Stark and compulsive it tells a story both of murder and those who write about it in a way that is as relevant now as it was in the 1950's. Focused on the lives of those impacted and the victims of John Christie's terrible crimes, The Peepshow is hugely insightful about a time and place now long gone, yet incredibly familiar” – Jennie Godfrey, author of The List of Suspicious Things
