top of page
Book Cover

Kate Summerscale

The Peepshow: The Murders at 10, Rillington Place

I’m an avid reader of crime fiction and hence approached this non-fiction work with some wariness. But Kate Summerscale has produced an eminently readable crime novel, albeit forensic in its detail and true to the fascinating real-life events she documents. Skilfully, she plunges us into the seedy world of 1950s West London, riddled with poverty, prostitution and crime. Furthermore, her powerful account of John Christie’s appalling crimes is not only a triumph of ‘true-crime’ writing but also an invitation to explore the sexual, racial and gender politics of that era.

Summerscale sets her story in and around Rillington Place, later renamed Ruston Place in a bid by the residents to rescue their street’s tarnished reputation. Just a stone’s throw from now trendy Ladbroke Grove, this area was rather down at heel even before Christie embarked on his killing spree. Streets of tatty former villas had been divided into cheap flats, many of which were rented out to Windrush migrants or used by the burgeoning number of prostitutes around Paddington station.

The narrative is beautifully structured around the experiences of two characters: celebrated tabloid crime reporter Harry Procter and frail, near-blind crime author Fryn Tennyson Jesse. We journey alongside these two writers as they attempt to get to the truth about Christie, the last serial killer to be hanged in Britain. For both, their premise is to prove that Christie was also responsible for the murder of Beryl and Geraldine Evans ten years prior and to clear her dead husband Tim Evans’ name.

The level of factual detail is impressive. Summerscale cites hundreds of contemporaneous police, press, medical, prison and court reports, as well as transcripts of interviews with neighbours, the victims’ families and Christie’s fellow prisoners. Yet the novel remains gripping. She manages to bring to life a huge cast of characters and transport us convincingly into post-war London.

10 Rillington Place asks us to confront attitudes which feel immensely shocking today. Just as this man sought to control and sedate his victims with gas before he raped and killed them, the press demonises the women and uses their actual bodies and the grisly details of their deaths to sell papers and give readers a cheap thrill. Harry Procter’s guilt over his own exploitation of the victims is sensitively presented.

Christie preyed on pregnant women, offering them illegal abortions in order to entice them into his house, reminding us of the difficulties and dangers thousands of women faced before the Abortion Act of 1967. Christie even goes as far as to blame the mere presence of the ‘blacks’ in his house for his actions; an attitude which, shockingly, appears to have been entirely acceptable in London at the time.

Kate Summerscale’s prose is elegant, stark and concise. This hybrid: part historical novel, part thriller, part searing social commentary is a truly compelling read. It is a worthy follow-on from The Suspicions of Mr Whicher and seals Summerscale’s place as the ultimate true crime storyteller.

And there’s a twist!

Louise Troup

Bloomsbury

bottom of page