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    The Wicked Boy: The Mystery of a Victorian Child Murderer
    The Wicked Boy: The Mystery of a Victorian Child Murderer
    The Wicked Boy: The Mystery of a Victorian Child Murderer
    Audiobook9 hours

    The Wicked Boy: The Mystery of a Victorian Child Murderer

    Written by Kate Summerscale

    Narrated by Corrie James

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Early in the morning of Monday 8 July 1895, thirteen-year-old Robert Coombes and his twelve-year-old brother Nattie set out from their small, yellow-brick terraced house in East London to watch a cricket match at Lord's. Their father had gone to sea the previous Friday, the boys told their neighbours, and their mother was visiting her family in Liverpool. Over the next ten days Robert and Nattie spent extravagantly, pawning their parents' valuables to fund trips to the theatre and the seaside. But as the sun beat down on the Coombes house, a strange smell began to emanate from the building. When the police were finally called to investigate, the discovery they made sent the press into a frenzy of horror and alarm, and Robert and Nattie were swept up in a criminal trial that echoed the outrageous plots of the 'penny dreadful' novels that Robert loved to read. In The Wicked Boy, Kate Summerscale has uncovered a fascinating true story of murder and morality - it is not just a meticulous examination of a shocking Victorian case, but also a compelling account of its aftermath, and of man's capacity to overcome the past.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateJul 12, 2016
    ISBN9781501916007
    The Wicked Boy: The Mystery of a Victorian Child Murderer
    Author

    Kate Summerscale

    Kate Summerscale is the author of the number one bestselling The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction 2008, winner of the Galaxy British Book of the Year Award, a Richard & Judy Book Club pick and adapted into a major ITV drama. Her debut, The Queen of Whale Cay, won a Somerset Maugham award and was shortlisted for The Whitbread Biography Award. The Wicked Boy, published in 2016, won the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime. Her latest book, The Haunting of Alma Fielding, was shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction. She lives in north London.

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    Reviews for The Wicked Boy

    3.5/5

    155 ratings22 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Beautifully written account of a tragic death and its consequences. Whilst the book is unable to get inside the child murderer's head, his actions as an adult suggest a remarkable commitment to people needing help. We learn that one answer to the question of what could be worse than a prolonged stretch in Broadmoor is Gallipoli followed by the Somme.
    • 4/5
      The time: July 1895. The place, East London. Robert Coombes, age 13, and his younger brother Nattie were spending their summer hanging around the docks, going to coffeehouses and theaters and splurging on things that caught their eyes. After ten days, their aunt realized what they were doing and went to their home to see what was going on. She forced her way in and discovered the decomposing body of their mother.The boys were arrested for murder and Robert confessed to having killed her because of her brutality, especially toward Nattie . Like many children, Robert and Nattie sought adventure and escape from the reality of their lives based partly on the stories they heard and read. While Robert was portrayed as having a severe psychiatric disorder at his trial, called the “crime of the century,” penny dreadfuls, trashy novels full of adventure and death and attractive to young boys, were blamed for his actions-- much like violent video games are blamed for heinous crimes today. One newspaper wrote, “The truth is...that in respect to the effect of reading on boys of the poorer class the world has got into one of those queer illogical stupidities that so easily beset it. In every other age and class man is held responsible for his reading, and not reading responsible for man.” The judge sent him to the most notorious criminal lunatic asylum in England. He was to spend seventeen years there. The same asylum had housed many future writers, one of whom became a major contributor to the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary provided thousands of quotations annually.The head of the asylum focused on rehabilitation rather than punishment. That paid off for Robert who, after his release, went to Australia. He became a contributing member of society and was honored for his military service at Gallipoli during World War I. While Kate Summerscale was researching the book, she found Robert Coombes tombstone. At the bottom was written “Always remembered by Harry Mulville & Family.” She decided to find out who Harry Mulville was and what their relationship said about Robert’s life.The book is very detailed about the Victorian society in which Robert Coombes lived as well as the various places he lived. It includes somewhat graphic descriptions of Emily Coombes’s body and testimony from the neighbors and others about Robert and the living conditions in the home. It’s an interesting biography of a violent murderer that was a headliner when it happened but ended up in a totally different place.
    • 3/5
      So far, I've only had one experience with true crime through NetGalley. It piqued my interest enough for me to explore other novels that fit into this genre. I thought this one was quite unique because not only is it true crime, it is from an incident that took place in the Victorian era in London. History was always one of my favorite subjects so I was excited to read this novel and see how the author would portray this iconic crime.

      Early morning on Monday 8 July 1895, 13-year-old Robert Coombes and his 12-year-old brother Nattie left their house in East London to attend a cricket match at Lord's. Upon questioning, they told their neighbours that their father was away on a sea voyage and their mother was visiting her family in Liverpool. Over the course of 10 days, these 2 brothers spend money extravagantly and begin to pawn valuables to fund their excursions. But eventually, people began to get suspicious of this scenario. When the police were finally called to investigate, the discovery something that sends the city - and the press - into a mad frenzy, sweeping Robert and Nattie along into a criminal trial for a crime that seems straight out of the 'penny dreadful' novels that Robert loved to read.

      The premise pretty much tells you everything about the story. On that note, I should probably warn you that this story isn't going to be suspenseful; everything is pretty much told by the synopsis and becomes obvious as you continue to read the facts presented (and you could always Google it). The author has clearly done her research when it came to this story. She had a lot of transcripts from the court and included detailed accounts of witnesses to create a cohesive story. There were times when I felt as if the author was giving me too much detail; there were some facts that I really could not care about, but because there were so many instances of this, I felt like I was plodding through this novel. The case itself was interesting and the author did an excellent job of portraying the sensation through all of the different lenses; there was no bias or partiality that I could detect, which was so good to see because it allowed me to form my own assumptions. I was also happy to see that the author ventured beyond the case and described the aftermath and the changes this crime presented to the lives of the boys. The book is dry, I'll admit. It reads like a textbook full of inane details, hiding those little nuggets of gold that actually hold your interest. Unfortunately, that's not my style of book so it made it feel a bit like a chore to get through. Overall, I think the author chose a fascinating case to explore and she did a great job in covering all of the bases and portraying a cohesive story that looks at every angle. However, the overwhelming amount of (sometimes useless) detail combined with the factual writing style made it a slow read to get through.
    • 4/5
      In the summer of1895 in London, at the age of 13, Robert Coombes murdered his mother, but her body wasn't discovered for 10 days. The trial was sensational, full of breathless hyperbole and endless speculation. After confessing to the crime, Robert was committed to Broadmoor, an asylum for the criminally insane, for well over a decade. And this was all very interesting, but how this book differs from most True Crime stories is that it continues to follow Robert for the rest of his life, from his release from Broadmoor to his military service to his last years. In the end, this tale of horror develops a thread of hope. A very different kind crime story, a little slow in places, with some unsatisfying (but understandable) gaps, but ultimately quite good.
    • 4/5
      Though ostensibly about the case of juvenile murderer Robert Coombes, that's really a guide rope for Kate Summerscale to explore some often-neglected aspects of late Victorian society.It's a period we see or read about so often in films, television series and novels that we probably think we know it quite well, but those depictions are fifth or sixth generation copies, most of the banalities of the period boiled off until all you've got is the cultural signifiers. And I love all that stuff, but it's also interesting to find out more of the real-world – the sensational murder cases, the poor neighbourhoods that were neither slum nor respectable, the tourism boom, blimey even the transatlantic cattle trade – that would have given context to the adventures of Sherlock Holmes and the rest when they were first published.It's a cliché but one of the most striking things is to realise how much was actually the same then as it was now. No great switch was thrown circa 1935 for the world to become modern. There's the particular media combination of outrage and morbidity ("Corr, look at the moral depravity on that!"), the tortured economics of international trade, controversy over the treatment of prisoners – even moral outrage about the sort of stuff kids amuse themselves with in their bedrooms.The murder case itself is gruesomely fascinating in its particulars but wouldn't have sustained a book by itself, and The Wicked Boy does feel less focused as it moves away from the turn of the last century. By the time Summerscale gets to the First World War, the descriptions of Robert's activities are very broad (surmises based on his service record) and her attempts to find some symmetry in his life were unconvincing; history doesn't oblige with a neat ending.The Wicked Boy is a great read for anyone interested in the social history of the late Victorian era. Fans of true crime may drift after the first 100 pages or so.
    • 4/5
      For the first 50 or so pages i was engrossed by this dreadful murder and matricide. Then the booked drifted into penny dreadfuls, the history and daily life at Broadmoor. But then it all came to life again. There was some kind of redemption for Robert Coombes and harrowing World War I experiences at Gallipoli. This is a gripping book.
    • 3/5
      This book was provided to me as an uncorrected digital copy by the publisher, via Edelweiss.

      The Wicked Boy is the true story of Robert Coombes, who, in the summer of 1895, at the age of 13, murdered his mother. He then spent the next several days, along with his brother and a family friend, living in the same house where his mother’s body decomposed in an upstairs bedroom. The book tells the account of the murder, trial, and the ensuing years.

      (Some spoilers ahead!) I don’t read many non-fiction books, but the premise of The Wicked Boy immediately caught my attention. I was curious to discover what motivates a very young person to kill their own parent, with no apparent intent to truly get away with the crime. The book kept me reading and interested in the case and life of Robert Coombes, but I struggled to be patient with what I see as “filler”. I know historical context is important (especially when the action takes place during a time period outside of most readers’ life spans), but the talk of political matters almost had me giving up on the book when I was less than a quarter of the way in. Maybe I’m just no seeing the big picture here, but I don’t see how the elections taking place at that time had any impact on the crime or the consequences. Additionally, I wish there had been some way to delve into Robert’s thoughts and motivations. My long history of reading mainly fiction has spoiled me to the omniscient point of view, I guess, so I really can’t hold the lack of gripping emotional drama against the book or the author, one works with the materials one has available. My desire for answers as far as Coombes’ motivation goes was thwarted, but the additional material in the epilogue to the book satisfied my need to see the human side of the man. All-in-all, I feel my time reading this book was time well-spent, and has opened my eyes to the pleasures of non-fiction writing.
    • 5/5
      This book, this case of a boy killing his mother (or boys), is more proof that playing violent video games shapes young minds in ways that lead to violen – Sorry? Oh, it's not 1995, but 1895? Oh. Right. This book, this case of a boy killing his mother, is more proof that reading sensational literature shapes young minds in ways that lead to violence and depravity. As Louisa May Alcott said, "'She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain." The killing at the center of this book is extremely disturbing. The older of the brothers is even moreso. Don't get me wrong, the younger brother is creepy – but the older one … "Robert was taken back to Holloway gaol. He was laughing as he got into the cab." It's the sort of thing that's always pointed out with salacious horror in coverage of trials – the defendant and his lawyer were seen laughing during a break in the harrowing testimony, that sort of thing. It's not how a kid should … be."Be as careful of the books you read, as of the company you keep; for your habits and character will be as much influenced by the former as the latter." - Paxton HoodI've often heard of Broadmoor prison; in fact, there is an apartment complex around the corner from me which I thought about, but honestly couldn't seriously consider because of the name. Come to find out, the place that has lived in my mind as a rather horrific insane asylum ("'Broadmoor!' as R. J. Tucknor wrote in a short story for Reynolds Newspaper: 'What visions of horror, ruined lives, and blasted aspirations, of madness and despair, does that single word conjure up!'") was … kind of a nice place to live. I won't spoil it, but it basically amounted to a place where one didn't have to worry about keeping a roof over one's head or feeding oneself, with no mundane worries or responsibilities, where one was surrounded by wholesome recreation opportunities and could even find oneself contributing to dictionary creation. If you were a man you even got an ounce of tobacco each week. There are days (and not a few of them) when I'd love to be an inmate at Broadmoor. (The good part. There was a bad part.) Oh, and there were interesting neighbors: "One elderly inmate, said to have killed his mother in 1849, would inform passersby that he had great mysteries, comets, suns and fires fastened to his shoulders.""In every other age and class man is held responsible for his reading, and not reading responsible for man. The books a man or woman reads are less the making of character than the expression of it."- The Pall Mall GazetteI was entertained to read about "the sour, urinous scent of the Bryant & May match works"… That's much the way I now feel about the Bryand and May mystery series after its author's recent remarks. It was a fascinating examination of the specific case and its setting – and its aftermath. Well-researched, well-written – and well recommended. The usual disclaimer: I received this book via Netgalley for review.
    • 4/5
      I received The Wicked Boy as an advance review copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The book will be released in July. Put it on your "to read" list now.

      The Wicked Boy is a non-fiction look at what happened on July 8, 1895, in East London. Robert Coombes, age 13, and his brother Nathaniel, age 12, left the house to go watch a cricket game. They also left the body of their mother, dead, in her room. One of the boys killed her. They may have conspired to plan her death. The reason may have been her mistreatment of them or the elder brothers need for money to run away and have adventures. There are many "may" statements in the first half of this book.

      The first half of the book deals with the murder, the trial and the attitude of the boys during all of those events. What is so striking and still resonating through my mind, is the boys' attitudes and lives before the end of the trial and after. If, as soon by their later lives, the murder was an aberration, a one time event, what led to the murders? It really is a fascinating book. Ms. Summerscale did an unbelievable amount of research to detail the lives of all involved. The epilogue contains one of those very rare moments of serendipity that researchers rarely have. For Ms. Summerscale and the reader, it was a satisfying conclusion to the question of the wickedness of Robert Coombes.
    • 4/5
      I'd like to thank the Penguin Group, The Penguin Press, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

      Early one morning in the summer of 1865, a thirteen year old Robert Coombes lays beside his mother in bed. The heat of the day is already building towards its suffocating presence and Robert's mother, in her chemise and drawers rather than a nightdress, punches out at the boy beside her as he kicks about in bed. Minutes later Robert makes his way to a second bedroom that he shares with his younger brother, Nattie, and tells him that he has done 'it' - he has killed their mother. His younger brother responding with disbelief, Robert leads him to their mother and father's bed where Nattie sees blood and hears a faint moan. Both boys go back to sleep, Robert back in the bed next to a dead or dying woman and Nattie back to their shared room.

      Emily Coombes was stabbed twice in the chest by a knife her son had bought weeks before and bludgeoned at the temple with a truncheon. Her sons, with the aide of money from her purse and the dress she had slipped off hours before, proceeded to pay the weekly rent through a neighbor, attend a cricket match, see a show, and eat out at local coffeehouses. They pawned off two watches and Robert's mandolin with the help of a family friend named John Fox, whom they enlisted into their escapades of the following ten days by inviting him to stay in their home to watch over them while their mother was away. Fox, described as simple-minded and trustworthy in the court case to come, was apparently oblivious to the growing stench of the house's fourth tenant or the oddity of the situation at hand. He pawned the possessions given to him, wore a suit Robert gave him, and slept and played cards with the boys in a downstairs backroom of the boys' home - not realizing how derailed his life was to become very shortly when the suspicions of the boys' aunt began to grow and the decomposing body of their mother was finally found.

      What followed was a newspaper-selling court case that rocked the surrounding area. Everything from what the boys' read (the penny bloods that had become such a contentious topic as of late) to what the boys wore at each appearance was fodder for the tell-all. In all the chaos, pity, and disturbance thrown up by the murder no one seemed to be able to get to the bottom of why. Were the boys insane, guilty, or both? Who was responsible for the murder, was Nattie culpable or just Robert? As the court proceeded, the boys were separated with Nattie becoming a witness rather than the accused. While Robert was eventually found guilty yet insane and shipped off to Broadmoor, the why of the crime lingered.

      This is the premise of Summerscale's Mystery of a Victorian Child Murderer. In an atmospheric chronicle of the boys' home life, trial, and the path Robert's life took afterwards, Summerscale attempts to reconcile the why of a child murderer and his crime with the man that would eventually emerge from Broadmoor.

      Summerscale does a very good job at introducing the reader to the time period and the details of the Coombes case. It is a satisfyingly well researched effort that offers up a great view of those involved in the case, the boys as they were portrayed in the papers and witnessed in court, their educational and family backgrounds, as well as what the medical perspective on insanity and culpability was at the time. Though Summerscale poses a few personal theories as to the reasons behind the murder, the looming why remains.

      While society in general has a much larger awareness of psychology and mental illness today- those that could provide any real answers about motive have passed on. While chaos and stressors in the home were alluded to in both the provided testimony in court and in Summerscale's account, only presumptions can be made at this point.

      Presumptions aside, the details of Robert's life are certainly enthralling. As are the details of the time period that have been gathered and woven through this book so adeptly. It is this weaving of details that offers up such a great opportunity for comparison in so many areas. I think that Summerscale does a good job of observing the varying threads of her project's time and place while respecting those involved.

      The Wicked Boy is a very interesting read that poses a great amount of reflection on the volatility of the Victorian period, the changes that we've seen in the fairly recent past, and on the psychology of murder in general and matricide in specific.
    • 4/5
      I won an Arc of this novel through Penguin's First to Read program. In July 1895 an 11 year old commits matricide. The press blames education and penny dreadfuls. How the trial, and the rest of Robert Coombes' life shakes out... is unexpected. I enjoyed this. Mainly a biography, partially an examination of British society/murder/insanity around the turn of the century. I expected it to be dull and dry like other historical examinations tend to be, but actually this novel was very interesting. I have no idea who I would recommend it to, but I would certainly recommend it!
    • 3/5
      In 1895, Robert Coombes, age 13, readily confessed to killing his mother. He seemed to feel no remorse, and prosecutors pointed to his history of headaches and fascination with crime and "penny dreadfuls". He was sentenced to Broadmoor, the criminal lunatic asylum.What was his motive? Was he insane? Could his later life give clues to his personality? Summerscale became curious about these questions and meticulously researched what happened to him. She found possible explanations for his crime, and some surprises about his adult life.I enjoyed the mystery. The details about education, work, and daily life were fascinating. I found the parts about Broadmoor especially interesting. The treatment of criminals there was much more modern than I would have expected. The storytelling was a bit slow.I received this book from the publisher after reviewing another of Summerscale's books.
    • 4/5
      Interesting story but I wasn't caught by the storytelling.Starts in the Victorian era, when a boy of 13, Robert Coombes and his 12 year old brother Nattie have 10 days of freedom until the smell from their house causes someone to investigate only to find that their mother is dead, their father is off at sea and they have recruited a family friend to help take care of them.When the mother's body is examined they discover that she has been stabbed and Robert admits that he's the one who did it. The trial ends with him in Broadmoor, convicted. After many years he's declared sane and discharged and he goes to Australia. Then he enlists and becomes a stretcher bearer and musician for the Australian Army and lives into old age, showing compassion to a young boy who is beaten by his father, becoming a read father to him.It's an interesting story of redemption and complicated life that made me think, though the writing style somehow left me cold. It also left me with a lot of questions and curiousity about what actually happened and how he became the man he was later. I also was a little unsettled with the idea that the mother insisted the son sleep in her bed up to 13, what was going on there, and then I realise that I don't want that answered.
    • 5/5
      To say The Wicked Boy is a meticulously researched novel is an understatement. It is as if the author lived during that era. The whole book is marvelously written. I was truly fascinated by the descriptive narrative of life of the lower working class during the late 19th century London and Robert’s life in Broadmoor and beyond. The story starts out in 1895 when a young Roberts Coombes, 13, and his brother Nathaniel, 12, are home alone while their father is aboard a ship to New York working as a steward and their mother is supposedly away visiting a relative. After more than a week of being alone, a relative trying to visit with the boys’ mother discovers that she has been murdered. Upon investigation it is discovered that Robert is the murdered. The story then precedes to the trial of Robert and how the English law system of the day dealt with child criminals, and how the blame for his behavior is not only ascribed to his parental upbringing but by other outside forces. The story continues on with what becomes of Robert after finding him insane and sending him to Broadmoor for 17 years. The story then concludes with the later years of Robert’s life where he has become a model citizen. For me, the later part of Robert’s life I found the most fascinating. Specifically, how he starts out in life as “The Wicked Boy” yet later does a total about face. I dare say, had he lived today the outcome would not have been as favorable. In exchange for my honest review, I received an ARC copy from Penguin Press via Net Galley.
    • 3/5
      I have mixed feelings about this book. The case itself is intriguing, in that macabre kind of way, and so the book held my interest. But I had problems with the content and story execution. The author clearly did an immense amount of research. We are fully immersed in the era, seeing the picture of English life back in the late 1800s. While I appreciate that aspect, and definitely feel these details add perspective, I thought there was too much detail on unrelated issues. For instance, early on we spend too much time, for my taste, on local politics that played no part at all in the boys' lives or the murder case. Later, at the end of the book, we're given a whole lot of detail on the war. Oddly, the book felt much like political science at the opening and war history in closing, with the middle being a case study on children who kill. Somewhere within all that, is the story of Robert and his family.Despite the volume of information presented, details on the actual subject of the book are scant. For example, around the middle of the book, once Robert is committed to the asylum, we're provided with quite a bit of detail about other patients and their lives at the asylum, but very little about Robert himself. I know next to nothing about his years in the asylum, how or if he matured, and, most especially, how he felt about having killed his mother. One particular issue was glossed over and barely examined by the author, though I felt it might have been central to Robert's story and certainly warranted exploration. Robert was 13, and his brother was 11, yet Robert was sleeping in his mother's bed with her, while his brother slept alone in his own room. It's hard to imagine that this arrangement made sense on any normal level. The author, though, stuck only to a recitation of facts, and didn't stray at all to explore or add commentary of her own.I understand that the lack of detail presented about the crime and Robert himself is likely a result of its absence in historical records, and not the author's fault for opting not to include it in this book. But we wind up with something that feels like a lot of filler around an elusive story. I think it would have worked better as an overall examination of child killers and Victorian society. The author sets a fascinating scene for us, but it doesn't quite work when we start with the expectation of Robert being the central focus.*I was provided with an ebook copy by the publisher, via NetGalley, in exchange for my honest review.*
    • 4/5
      I received an ARC of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book or my review itself.Kate Summerscale's The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher is one of my all-time favorite true crime books. I was beyond excited when I heard she was writing The Wicked Boy, and while it didn't quite live up to Mr. Whicher (I'm honestly not sure most could for me), it was a good, well-written, well-researched read.The Wicked Boy tells the true tale of Robert Coombes, a young boy who murdered his mother, a crime he and his younger brother hid for days. Summerscale expertly explores not only the crime itself, and the purported motives behind it, but a wide range of other historical, social, and cultural themes: boyhood in the 1800s, the rise of penny dreadfuls and their possible influence on young minds, mental illness, asylums, war, and redemption. Trust Summerscale as a writer and researcher. While this may not be her best work ever, it is very good, and keeps her among the best true crime writers of our time.
    • 3/5
      A good historical true crime read. Not only does it research the crime but I got a real feel for the justice system in Victorian England. It is nice to know that this young man redeemed himself in his later years. Filled with interesting crime facts and historical facts.
    • 5/5
      The Wicked Boy: The Mystery of a Victorian Child Murderer by Kate Summerscale is a very well-written look at the true crime case of Robert Coombes, who murdered his mother in 1895 at the age of 13.This book looks at everything from the crime and immediate aftermath to Coombes' life after incarceration in a mental institution. There is something here for every fan of true crime, especially cases from the past. The crime is covered and a possible motivation is put forth; the trial never touched on motive. The manner in which Coombes was treated once in the system is looked at and the contrasts with contemporary judicial procedures is quite interesting. Summerscale also looks at whether or not rehabilitation was effective by sharing the rest of the killer's life with us.The writing is superb and the research is thorough and balanced. I would recommend this wholeheartedly to anyone with an interest in true crime and readers of historical fiction would likely find much to enjoy as well.Reviewed from an ARC made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
    • 5/5
      I have never read anything by this author. Although I do own another book by this author. Now, after finishing this one I am going to read the other book. Wow, this book is not only a must read but a have to read! It has been a long time since I have read a true crime novel. Right from the beginning, I was hooked. It is amazing to think that the boys, Robert and Nattie could be that calm while still living in the same home with their dead mother right upstairs. Yet, the more I read about Robert and his trip to see a murderer and his reaction both at the murderer and at his own trial, I am not shocked by his reaction. Robert was disassociated with the situation. Yet I found it very intriguing as well about his time as an adult afterwards with his time in the war and him befriending Harry and showing compassion. A very well written book.
    • 2/5
      In 1895 Robert and Nattie Coombs spent a week fishing, playing cards, taking day trips and basically enjoying themselves while their mother, Emily, lay dead in an upstairs bedroom in their East London home. Eventually, the death was discovered and Robert confessed to the crime, his reason being her cruelty towards his younger brother, Nattie. A lengthy trial ensued and the remainder of the book covers what happened to Robert and to a lesser degree, Nattie. Kate Summerscale has done an extensive amount of research for her book on this crime and the subsequent trial, which was quite sensationalized in the press at the time. The Wicked Boy: The Mystery of a Victorian Child Murderer is written in a rather dry, journalistic style that I found a bit off-putting at times. Some recent nonfiction books read like novels; this book definitely does not. I guess, as far as a recommendation is concerned, it depends how you like your books. I was struck by the nature vs. nurture discussions that took place at the time and are still taking place today. Was Robert’s crime due to the environment he grew up in (East London poverty) or his mother’s presumed brutality? Also, much was made of the penny dreadful’s influence on Robert and I was reminded of the conversations today regarding television/movie/video game’s effect on the minds and behavior of the young and perhaps the cause of violent crimes. Taking this into account, I viewed the book as much a social commentary as a well-researched version of a Victorian murder.
    • 4/5
      This was such an interesting book to read. The author had stumbled across a story from the late 1800's in England, where a 13 year old boy murdered his mother. There was no clear motive and young Robert showed very little remorse. What could have led him to commit such an act?The amount of research and the facts of the story were presented in such a way that made this a very well written non-fiction story. Details of the murder, the trial and Roberts subsequent stay in a lunatic asylum were all included. As where many other aspects of his life, up until his death. I highly recommend this book.
    • 5/5
      Another fascinating story by Kate Summerscale.I enjoyed "The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher" very much and this novel is even better.It chronicles the Victorian case of two boys who allegedly murder their parents, but try to cover the crime up.Great read!Highly recommended.I was given a digital copy of this book by the publisher Bloomsbury via Netgalley in return for an honest unbiased review.