Kate Summerscale

Join for the gripping account of a murder case that sent late Victorian Britain into a frenzy by the bestselling author of 'The Suspicions of Mr Whicher'.

Early on Monday 8 July 1895, thirteen-year-old Robert Coombes and his twelve-year-old brother Nattie set out from their house in East London to watch a cricket match at Lord’s.

Their father had gone to sea the previous Friday, leaving the boys and their mother at home. Robert and Nattie spent the next ten days pawning family valuables to fund trips to the theatre and seaside.

During this time nobody saw or heard from their mother, but as the sun beat down on the Coombes house an awful smell began to emanate from the building and what the police found in one of the bedrooms sent the press into a frenzy of horror and alarm, and Robert and Nattie were swept up in a criminal trial that would stun the nation.

Kate Summerscale is the winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction and the Galaxy British Book of the Year Award. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2010.

Kate will be in conversation with Alex Clark, journalist and broadcaster, who has judged many literary awards including the 2008 Man Booker.