In the evening of Tuesday 24 March 1953, Harry Procter, the star crime reporter of the Sunday Pictorial, drove over to a Victorian terrace in Notting Hill in which the bodies of three young women had been discovered...
The Blurb
In 1953, the bodies of three young women are found by a tenant in the walls of a Notting Hill house. He tells the police that he chanced upon them while trying to put up a shelf for his transistor radio.
As a series of further horrors are discovered, 10 Rillington Place becomes an address synonymous with murder.
A riveting tale of violence, misogyny and tabloid frenzy, The Peepshow lifts the veil on what really happened inside Britain's most notorious house - and suggests a new solution to the case that transfixed a nation.
My Review
I have read the majority of Kate Summerscale's books and enjoyed each one of them. So, when I saw this on my library shelves I picked it up and checked it out with a sense of glee.
It's no surprise that this book was longlisted for the Women's Prize for Non-Fiction in 2025. It was also a five-star read for me.
The author has the ability to recreate a true crime story vividly on the page. I was already familiar with the murders at 10 Rillington Place, but this book still had something new to offer. She has created an easy-to-read, accessible retelling of the horrors which took place behind the innocent-looking front door of the Notting Hill house in which John Reginald Christie lived.
This was more than the retelling of a familiar story. It was an insight into the beliefs and culture of a community in 1950s London. It depicts the racism, misogyny and class differences of post-war Britain.
Despite this book being brilliantly written, it is an unsettling read nonetheless. How could we read of a serial rapist and murderer without a sense of shock, no matter how familiar one might already be with the story? We should be unsettled by such a quiet, unassuming man being able to carry out such brutalities. Although the author does describe the murders in some detail by using contemporary sources, at no point did I feel that she was describing these events in a gratuitous manner. Rather, she sought to present us with the facts of the horrendous crimes of this man.
It also considers whether the execution of Timothy Evans for the murder of his child was perhaps one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in Britain to date. Timothy Evans lived with his wife, and baby daughter, Geraldine, in the same house as Christie and his wife. Eighteen months prior to Christie's arrest, the bodies of Evan's wife and child were discovered in the house. It was largely the testimony of the apparently gentle and mild-mannered Christie which was instrumental in the conviction and execution of Timothy Evans.
The author's comprehensive research is evident throughout and the result is this excellent insight into the murders, society and legal system of 1950s Britain.
Anyone interested in history or true crime will find this an excellent read that I highly recommend.
If you would like to read my review of Kate Summerscale's, The Wicked Boy you can find it by clicking here.
Book Details
ISBN: 978 1526660510
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Formats: e-book, audio, hardback and paperback
No. of Pages: 320 (paperback)
Purchase Links
Bookshop.org
Amazon UK
Amazon US
About the Author
Kate Summerscale was born in London and lived in Japan and Chile as a child. She was then educated at Parliament Hill school in London, Bedales school in Hampshire and at Oxford and Stanford universities. She worked at various newspapers and magazines until in 2005 she left her job as Literary Editor of the Daily Telegraph to write The Suspicions of Mr Whicher. She has judged several literary prizes, including the Booker Prize, and in 2010 was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She lives in London.
Kate Summerscale’s first book, The Queen of Whale Cay, was inspired by an obituary she wrote for the Daily Telegraph — it won the Somerset Maugham award and was shortlisted for the Whitbread biography prize.
The Suspicions of Mr Whicher won the Samuel Johnson prize and the British Book Award for both Popular Non-Fiction and Book of the Year. It was a Richard & Judy Bookclub pick and was shortlisted for the Crime Writers Association Non-Fiction Gold Dagger in the UK and the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime in the US. Hat Trick productions adapted the story for ITV, and went on to make three fictional dramas about Jack Whicher’s investigations.
Kate’s third book, Mrs Robinson’s Disgrace, was a Sunday Times bestseller, and her fourth, The Wicked Boy, won the 2017 Mystery Writers of America Edgar award for Best Fact Crime. The Haunting of Alma Fielding was shortlisted for the 2020 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, and The Book of Phobias & Manias has been published in 19 languages. The Peepshow was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction and won the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction.
You can also find Kate at:
Author Website
(media courtesy the author/publisher)
(all opinions are my own)
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