Ten Rillington Place [Import] [Paperback]

Ludovic Kennedy (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Avon; New edition (1971)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0586034285
• ISBN-13: 978-0586034286
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,242,166 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant expose of miscarriage of justice, January 17, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Ten Rillington Place (Paperback)

When Timothy Evans met John Christie in 1950's London neither was to know how they would forever change each other's destiny. This factual account of one of Britain's most notorious serial killers and the man who was wrongly executed in his stead is a seering condemnation of police ineptitude and judicial bungling. Author Ludovic Kennedy has left no stone unturned in his exhaustive and penetrating investigation of how one man was rushed to the gallows and another went free to kill repeatedly. Evans' story is filled with pathos while Christie is revealed to be a monster of chilling amorality. A film of this story, starring John Hurt and Richard Attenborough, beautifully captures the atmosphere of the period, but it is this staggering book which documents the events with the inevitability of a Greek tragedy.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Murder in a Notting Hill dollhouse, March 5, 2002

By 

Charles Slovenski (Geneva Switzerland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ten Rillington Place (Paperback)

This is a story of two men, Mr. Kennedy tells us at the outset, one who loses his wife and baby to murder, is falsely accused and put to death and the other, a vicious, pathetic, seedy serial killer. The labyrinths of the story are thus: Mr. Evans, his wife and baby rent rooms in a doll-sized house in Notting Hill. In this house, on the ground floor are Mr. Christie and his wife. An elderly man also resides here but he is away. Before the bodies of Mrs. Evans and her baby are discovered in the wash house, Mr. Evans turns himself into the police and, although illiterate and possessing the mentality of a 10 year old, confesses twice to the murders. Later he retracts his confession and claims that Mr. Christie committed the murders and that he confessed only to protect Mr. Christie. He explains that Mr. Christie convinced Mr. Evans and his wife that he was an abortionist, that (against his wishes) his wife agreed to undergo Mr. Christie's treatment. Mr. Evans claims to arrive home to find his wife dead but his baby alive. After a couple of days, Mr. Christie tells Mr. Evans that he sent the baby to a couple in East Acton and advises him to flee London. Mr. Evans is tried, found guilty and hanged to death. Several years later, six women's bodies, including that of Mrs. Christie, are discovered at 10 Rillington Place. It becomes obvious that Mr. Evans was telling the truth and was innocent of the murders of his wife and baby. He was wrongfully put to death. His innocence has never been reinstated by the British court.

Mr. Kennedy makes it clear that the crimes are not the only issue here. The major issue is the miscarriage of justice and the further injustice that this mistake has never been officially acknowledged by the British authorities. Poor Mr. Evans, his mother and sisters who lived nearby.

The account of the murders of Beryl Evans and baby Geraldine is thoroughly presented. There is too much consideration for the feelings of the police and judge. Ultimately, the question of how these lawmen could have ignored certain evidence, and tampered with the existing evidence, becomes paramount. In this book, the authorities, even more than Mr. Christie, become the guilty party. Mr. Kennedy does a respectable job of finding excuses for them (as indeed they seem to have found for themselves) in the basic fact that Mr. Evans, a chronic liar and emotionally confused, confessed twice to the crimes but the tampering of evidence makes lame any justification for this misjustice. It is maddening and incomprehensible and upstages Mr. Christie, whose story is another book in itself, totally.

It is no small point that the inside cover of this book is a map of Notting Hill in the 1950s. The neighborhood where Mr. Christie, the Evans's, Mr. Evans's mother and sisters lived, as well as where Christie's other victims frequented, seems to play a part in understanding the emotional pitch of these people and their lives, presenting a banal but murky background to the horrors that took place.

This is an excellent true crime account. It fascinates and enrages the reader and serves to clear the name of an innocent man who could hardly have understood what was happening to him. The fact that one wonders about the souls of these unfortunate people, victims, criminal and lawmen, is the greatest achievement of this book.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent!, October 17, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Ten Rillington Place (Paperback)

One of the best stories I've ever read. Being a true crime story, the truth is really stranger than fiction. This book was beautifully written and I've read it several times. The movie with John Hurt and Richard Attenborough from 1970 is also excellent, but the book describes the details better than a movie can.