From the award-winning and best-selling author of Into the Darkest
Corner comes a delicious Victorian crime novel based on a true story
that shocked and fascinated the nation.
On 7th November 1843, Harriet Monckton, 23 years old and a woman of
respectable parentage and religious habits, is found murdered in the
privy behind the chapel she regularly attended in Bromley, Kent.
The community is appalled by her death, apparently as a result of
swallowing a fatal dose of prussic acid, and even more so when the
surgeon reports that Harriet was around six months pregnant.
Drawing on the coroner's reports and witness testimonies, Elizabeth
Haynes builds a compelling picture of Harriet's final hours through the
eyes of those closest to her and the last people to see her alive. Her
fellow teacher and companion, her would-be fiancé, her seducer, her
former lover - all are suspects; each has a reason to want her dead.
Brimming with lust, mistrust and guilt, The Murder of Harriet Monckton
is a master class of suspense from one of our greatest crime writers.