Agatha Christie’s detective fiction is deeply inspired by real-life crimes, criminals, and historical mysteries worldwide.Did you know that many of Agatha Christie’s best-selling detective stories have their basis in reality?‘Who killed Charles Bravo and why?’ asks retired Superintendent Spence in Elephants Can Remember. He refers to an unsolved Victorian murder mystery, one of many allusions to real life crime and criminals in Agatha Christie’s fiction. Th...

The twin fascinations of death and villainy will always hold us in their grim but thrilling grip. In Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths in Lewisham and Deptford the chill is brought close to home as each chapter investigates the darker side of humanity in cases of murder, deceit and pure malice committed over the centuries in this area of London. From crimes of passion to opportunistic killings and coldly premeditated acts of murder, the full spectrum of criminality is recounted, bringing to...

A simple guide to tracing British family tree before the onset of civil registration in 1837 and back to the Middle Ages.The trail that an ancestor leaves through the Victorian period and the twentieth century is relatively easy to follow—the records are plentiful, accessible, and commonly used. But how do you go back further, into the centuries before the central registration of births, marriages, and deaths was introduced in 1837, before the first detailed census ...

"Oates examines in minute detail why the Jacobite forces posed such a threat to William and Mary, Queen Anne, and George I and II." —Books MonthlyMany books have been written about the Jacobite rebellions—the armed attempts made by the Stuarts to regain the British throne between 1689 and 1746—and in particular about the risings of 1689, 1715, 1719 and 1745. The key battles have been described in graphic detail. Yet no previous book has given a comprehensive militar...

The East End is one of the most famous parts of London and it has had its own distinctive identity since the district was first settled in medieval times. It is best known for extremes of poverty and deprivation, for strong political and social movements, and for the extraordinary mix of immigrants who have shaped its history. Jonathan Oatess handbook is the ideal guide to its complex, rich and varied story and it is an essential source for anyone who wants to find out about an East End an...

In this practical handbook Jonathan Oates introduces the fascinating subject of criminal history and he gives readers all the information they need to investigate the life stories of criminals and their victims. He traces the development of the justice system and policing, and gives an insight into the criminal world of the times and the individuals who populated it. In a series of concise chapters he covers all the important aspects of the subject. At every stage, he guides readers toward...

An historical true crime accounting of London's notorious serial murderers and their victims, spanning the Victorian era to the mid-twentieth century.Murders and murderers fascinate us—and perhaps serial killers fascinate us most of all. In the twentieth century the term came to be used to describe murders committed by the same person, often with similar methods. But, as Jonathan Oates demonstrates in this selection of cases from London, this category of crime has e...

The bestselling criminal history author provides "compelling insight" into the life and crimes of one of England's most notorious serial killers ( Buckinghamshire Life).Sixty years ago, the discovery of bodies at 10 Rillington Place in Notting Hill, London, led to one of the most sensational, shocking, and controversial serial murder cases in British criminal history: the case of John Christie. Much has been written about the Christie kil...

This west London town has its own character—and its own deadly criminal history—from the author of Unsolved Murders of Victorian and Edwardian London.Foul Deeds & Suspicious Deaths Around Uxbridge takes the reader on a sinister and sad journey through centuries of local crime and conspiracy, meeting victims and villains of all sorts along the way. There is no shortage of harrowing—and revealing—incidents of evil and despair to recount from the ear...

True stories of malice, perversion and despair that reveal the dark, sometimes lethal side of history in these two London boroughs.You may think Richmond, Kingston and the neighbouring districts are prosperous, safe and law-abiding in comparison to the hazardous, crime-prone centre of London, but you would be mistaken. For, as Jonathan Oates shows in this gripping book, appalling crimes have shocked the local community and left their mark on the history of the area...

The real-life murder mysteries that rocked London between two world wars—from the author of Unsolved Murders of Victorian and Edwardian London.Unsolved crimes have a special fascination, none more so than unsolved murders. The shock of the crime itself and the mystery surrounding it, the fear generated by the awareness a killer on the loose, the insight the cases give into outdated police methods, and the chance to speculate about the identity of the kille...

Why does the notorious highwayman Dick Turpin have such an extraordinary reputation today? How come his criminal career has inspired a profusion of often misleading literature and film? This eighteenth-century villain is often portrayed as a hero – dashing, sinister, romantic, daring, a Robin Hood of his times. The reality, as Jonathan Oates reveals in this perceptive, carefully researched study, was radically different. He was a robber, torturer and killer, a gangster whose posthumous rep...