The Country House Murders [Hardcover]

Jonathan Goodman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1990

This collection of 13 crimes committed in or near country houses, is the fifth in Jonathan Goodman's series of anthologies of true murders. It includes the murder of the green bicycle in 1917 near Leicester, the Puzzle of Rumsey House in 1920 in Wales and many more.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Allison & Busby (May 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0850317827
• ISBN-13: 978-0850317824
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,759,481 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting but Disappointing, December 20, 2000

By 

A. Woodley "Patroness, Janeites, the Austen list" (New Zealand) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Country House Murders (Hardcover)

I quite like historial crime cases which is why I picked up this book but the book is very uneven. Each chapter is written by someone different and the whole has been edited by John Goodman - but I flatly disliked some of the authors in this.

The worst was the first chapter, "The Killing at Road Hill House" - I almost stopped reading the whole book after that However reading on I was gripped by "The Puzzle of Rumsey House" and really enjoyed the "The Origin of the 'Gigman' ". After that I just skipped the chapters that didn't take me in the first few paragraphs

Most of the cases were new to me. Goodman also collects them up from a range of times and places - the earliest was the death of Amy Robsart, wife of the Earl of Leciester in the 16th Century. The rest were mostly spread from 1800 to the late 1950's. Mostly English cases there were also a couple of French ones and an American case (The Frozen Footprints). I hadn't come across any of the cases before except that of "The Gigman" which is the infamous Hunt-Thurtell murder trial of the 1820's which has been made into a book.

Jonathon Goodman writes the most interesting (I think) case in the book called "A short walk to Eternity" about a certain William Corder who murders his mistress - Goodman writes with a nice dry tone but I just felt there was detail about the Corder not really explained. Perhaps I am being unfair and there isn't room in this short book. Perhaps we never really understand murderers. It wasn't so much his murder, but his life afterwards that seemed so inexplicable.

I see from the front page that Goodman has edited a number of other of these True Crime collections. If I came across them I would certainly browse through them but I don't think I would actively seek them out to read.