Murder At The Priory (U)

Of all the classic murders of the past, the mysterious poisoning of handsome, up-and-coming young barrister Charles Bravo at The Priory, Balham, in 1876 has aroused perhaps the greatest speculation. Now, at last, the solution that makes perfect sense is decisively revealed in this gripping and meticulously researched account.

There were four central characters in the drama: Charles Bravo; his wife Florence, a beautiful young woman in possession of a considerable fortune; James Gully, a much respected doctor who was old enough to be Florence's grandfather and with whom she had an adulterous affair; and, finally, Florence's enigmatic companion, Jane Cox, through whom Florence met the ill-fated Charles.

One April night Charles Bravo swallowed enough antimony to 'kill a horse', and his subsequent agonising death resulted in an inquest whose scandalous revelations shocked the nation and left witnesses with their reputations in shreds. The eventual outcome of the inquiry was a verdict that Charles had indeed been murdered, but that there was insufficient evidence to fix the guilt. Now the authors of 'The Murder at the Priory' have re-examined contemporary transcripts and newspaper accounts, birth registers and census records, and the files of the Metropolitan Police and the Treasury - and in doing so have unearthed new evidence with which to expose the killer.

The result is an eminently satisfying solution to what, in the words of H R F Keating, 'can well claim to be the most mysterious follow-up to 'Perfect Murder: A Century of Unsolved Homicides' by Bernard Taylor and Stephen Knight, which won the 1987 Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger award for Non-Fiction.