Kate Summerscale | The Peepshow: The Murders at 10 Rillington Place
Sun 24 Nov 2024 | 8:00pm - 9:00pm
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?
In conversation with Alex Clark.
Unfortunately this event has now been cancelled. Kate will however be joining us in Spring at our April festival next year!
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…
Venue: Old Divinity School
Duration: 1 hour
Tickets available soon.
Author Biography
Kate Summerscale left her job as Literary Editor of the Daily Telegraph in 2005 to write The Suspicions of Mr Whicher (2008). It won the Samuel Johnson prize as well as the British Book Awards for both Popular Non-Fiction and Book of the Year. Hat Trick productions adapted the story for ITV, and went on to make three fictional dramas about Jack Whicher’s investigations.
Kate’s third book, Mrs Robinson’s Disgrace (2012), was a Sunday Times bestseller, and her fourth, The Wicked Boy (2016), won the 2017 Mystery Writers of America Edgar award for Best Fact Crime. The Haunting of Alma Fielding, was shortlisted for the 2020 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, and The Book of Phobias & Manias is now out in the UK and the US.
Chair Biography
Alex Clark is a broadcaster and journalist, who writes for many publications including the Guardian, the Observer, and the Times Literary Supplement. She is a co-host on the Graham Norton Book Club for Audible and hosts the TLS podcast. She is a professional chairperson and appears all over the UK at literary festivals & events. Alex is a festival honorary patron.
