I couldn’t resist picking this up when I found this in the library (found it while looking for The Inheritor’s Poison). Murder by the Book is not only about the murder of Lord William Russel, which is more complicated than the trial might suggest, but also looks at one of the most popular books of that time period – Jack Sheppard – and its connection to the murder of Lord William Russel.

To be honest, I’ve never heard of Jack Sheppard. But it’s apparently a very popular book by William Harrison Ainsworth, who was immensely popular (even Charles Dickens admired him at one point in time). Jack Sheppard followed the story of a heroic rouge who eventually meets his end by hanging. This was one of the ‘Newgate Novels’, so-called because they romanticised criminals and were feared to be a corrupting influence on society, with Ainsworth’s novel being the worst.

At the risk of spoiling a two-hundred-year-old murder, what came out from the trial of Lord William Russell’s accused murderer was that he may have been influenced by Jack Sheppard. The key word is “may” because Harman argues that the case against Courvoisier (the convicted murderer) was a little more complicated, with a few questions left unanswered. Harman, however, refrains from making any statement as to Courvoisier’s guilt, preferring to stop after raising a few questions.

And as an interesting aside, it turns out that someone came up with the idea of fingerprints from this case! Sadly, it wasn’t put into use until much later.

Overall, I really enjoyed this (as morbid as it sounds). Not only was the case and Jack Sheppard new to me, I also thought the intersection of stories and crime to be very interesting; I actually thought of the Slenderman case while reading this as there are some parallels when you’re looking at what is supposed to have motivated the crime.