Published in 2025
494 pages
16 hours and 56 minutes
Hallie Rubenhold is a bestselling author and Baillie Gifford nonfiction prize-winning social historian whose expertise lies in revealing stories of previously unknown women and episodes in history. As well as The Covent Garden Ladies, Rubenhold’s works of nonfiction include the award-winning and national bestselling The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper and Lady Worsley’s Whim, dramatized by the BBC as “The Scandalous Lady W.” Her latest work of nonfiction, Story of a Murder, the story of the disappeared wives and partner of Dr. Crippen, is due to be published in 2025. She has also written two acclaimed novels, Mistress of My Fate and The French Lesson, which are feminist homages to the literary tropes of the eighteenth century. She lives in London with her husband.
What is this book about?
An epic examination of the historical true-crime story of infamous wife-murderer Dr Crippen in Edwardian England, brought to justice by an extraordinary group of strong women
No murderer should ever be the keeper of their victim’s story …
On 1 February, 1910, vivacious musichall performer, Belle Elmore, suddenly vanished from her north London home, causing alarm among her circle of female friends, the entertainers of the Music Hall Ladies’ Guild who demanded an immediate investigation.
They could not have known what they would provoke: the unearthing of a gruesome secret, followed by a fevered manhunt for the prime suspect: Belle’s husband, medical fraudster, Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen.
Hiding in the shadows of this evergreen tale is Crippen’s typist and lover, Ethel Le Neve – was she really just ‘an innocent young girl’ in thrall to a powerful older man as so many people have since reported?
In this epic examination of one of the most infamous murders of the twentieth century, prizewinning social historian Hallie Rubenhold gives voice to those who have never properly been heard – the women.
Featuring a carnival cast of eccentric entertainers, glamorous lawyers, zealous detectives, medics and liars, STORY OF A MURDER is meticulously researched and multi-layered, offering the listener an electrifying snapshot of Britain and America at the dawn of the modern era.
“A unique combination of sleuthing, storytelling and compassion” – Lucy Worsley
