Suspicions of Mr. Whicher Disappointing

I just finished The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective a non-fiction book that was supposed to read like fiction.  Well, whoever wrote that quote, obviously does not read a lot of fiction.  The book is a retelling of an actual murder that took place in England where a three-year-old was taken from his bed and killed.  This book walks you through EVERYTHING that the author was able to find regarding this case, one which rocked Britain at the time.  I love the Victorian time period and I love mysteries, so I thought this one would be right up my alley, but I was mistaken.


OMGosh was this SLOW! I had just finished Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell  which I thought was the slowest book ever, but I was wrong. This is why I don'’t read non-fiction books. I think if the author had written this more like a novel supported by her copious research, it would have been so much more readable. Instead, it reads like a well-researched Master'’s thesis on this murder case. I did find some of the etymology of sleuth vocabulary interesting, but as a whole, it fell flat. I didn'’t care about any of the characters, not even the poor detective. I'’ve never read any of the turn of the century mysteries that she refers to and she didn'’t really spark any desire in me to do so. For now, I’ll stick with fiction.