On 7 November 1974, a nanny named Sandra Rivett was bludgeoned to death in a posh Belgravia basement. A second woman, Veronica, Countess of Lucan, was also attacked. The man named in court as perpetrator of these crimes, Richard John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan, disappeared next morning. The case, solved in the eyes of the law, has retained its fascination ever since.
Forty years on, it is time for the definitive account. Laura Thompson, acclaimed biographer of Agatha Christie, narrates the extraordinary events leading up to that fateful night, and draws on her considerable forensic skills to examine the possible truths behind one of postwar Britain's most notorious murders. A DIFFERENT CLASS OF MURDER is a portrait of an era, of a bizarre cast of characters, of a murder, of a mystery. Part detective story, part social history; it tells in masterly style one of the great tales of our collective living memory.