MR BRIGGS' HAT is at number 1 in the UK true crime charts
Kate Colquhoun's book about the very first murder to take place on a British train has climbed to the top of the UK hardback true crime chart.
MR BRIGGS' HAT (Little, Brown, £16.99, May 2011), which was shortlisted for the Crime Writers' Association Dagger Award for Non-Fiction, is a breakneck-paced, fascinating Victoria true crime story - one that obsessed the nation and changed rail travel for ever. In the US, the book was retitled MURDER IN THE FIRST CLASS CARRIAGE, and has just been published by Overlook Press.
Some reviews follow:
"Energetic, irresistible, a marvellously invigorating tale" Observer, Books of the Year
"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
"[A] thrilling book, which reads at times like a good Victorian novel . . . an utterly compelling did-he-do-it." The Sunday Times
"An enthralling account of a real life mystery" Independent
"Kate Colquhoun is a fine, robust writer who makes the most of its every twist and turn."
(--The Mail on Sunday )
"The re-telling of this true story pits justice against baying-for-blood hysteria in a sensationally episodic tale that is every bit as compelling as it must have been when it happened." Easy Living
"A thrilling book, which reads at times like a good Victorian novelŠan utterly compelling did-he-do-it." Sunday Times
"Enthralling. . . . A fascinatingly quirky portrait of the underside of mid-Victorian London. I found it unputdownable." Miranda Seymour, The Daily Telegraph
"The weight of evidence is in the balance to the very end. . . . Mesmerizing." Guardian
"Ms. Colquhoun’s meticulously researched true-crime account, first published in England, is a tick-tock of the arrest and trial of a German tailor following a chase across the Atlantic…its final revelation is a showstopper."
New York Times
Post date:
02/07/2012 - 11:35
Category:
Books