You may think Richmond, Kingston and the neighbouring districts are prosperous, safe and law-abiding in comparison to the hazardous, crime-prone centre of London, but you would be mistaken. For, as Jonathan Oates shows in this gripping book, appalling crimes have shocked the local community and left their mark on the history of the area over the last two centuries. Among the sensational criminal cases he reconstructs in chilling, forensic detail are the murder of the French count and countess who fled the reign of terror in revolutionary France only to become the victims of their own servant, the bigamist suspected of poisoning, the female servant who was hanged for chopping up her mistress, the poverty-stricken elderly couple who swallowed belladonna in a suicide pact, the jobless accountant who shot his three children and committed suicide, and the killing of two teenage girls who were assaulted, then stabbed, then thrown in the Thames. As he takes the reader through these stories of malice, perversion and despair, Jonathan Oates reveals the dark, sometimes lethal side of the history of Richmond and Kingston. AUTHOR: Dr Jonathan Oates is the Ealing Borough Archivist and Local History Librarian, and he has written and lectured on aspects of the history of London, including its criminal past. His books include Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths in Ealing, Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths in Lewisham and Deptford, Unsolved Murders in Victorian and Edwardian London, Unsolved London Murders: The 1920s and 1930s, Unsolved London Murders: The 1940s and 1950s and Attack on London. He is also an authority on the Jacobite rebellions of 1714 and 1745 and recently published "Sweet William or The Butcher? The Duke of Cumberland and the '45". SELLING POINTS: Shocking criminal cases from the history of Richmond and Kingston Murder, assault, poisoning, robbery, bigamy, crimes of passion and despair Vivid insights into detective work and policing over the last two centuries Describes the disturbing psychology of individuals who have committed dreadful crimes ILLUSTRATIONS 40 photos
