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...

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...

In the quaint seaside town of Bude, Cornwall, a seemingly innocent afternoon tea in 1930 unravels into a sinister tale of arsenic poisoning and mysterious disappearances. When one of the three tea companions succumbs to the deadly toxin, suspicions arose, and the plot thickens as Annie Hearn, one of the remaining survivors, vanished without a trace. As the press dug into Annie's enigmatic past, unsettling stories emerged. In the backdrop of this gripping mystery, doctors grow wary of a pec...

"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...

"Oates charts train crimes from the Victorian period to the present day, from casual murder to calculated robbery. . . . A must for true-crime addicts" ( Practical Family History).Murder and robbery committed on the railways have long held a special place in British criminal history. Railways and trains create special conditions—and opportunities—for criminal acts. Two legendary large-scale robberies took place on the British railways—the Gold Bullion Robb...

The Second Crumbles murder captivated 1920s Britain, revealing a chilling blend of charm, brutality, and groundbreaking forensic methods.The murder of Emily Beilby Kaye in 1924 was a crime of shocking brutality. Her body, having been dismembered, was found scattered, and her killer’s capture and subsequent trial unraveled under the glare of public scrutiny. Despite its notoriety at the time and its role in shaping modern forensic investigation, this case has been l...

Titus Oates, architect of the false Popish Plot, embodies deceit, ambition, and turmoil in Restoration England.Reviled by his contemporaries and historians alike, 'the monstrous Titus Oates' masterminded the fabricated Popish Plot of 1678–1681, a conspiracy that led to the wrongful execution of 27 Catholics. His story is one of staggering ambition, lies, and betrayal. Yet Oates’ life also opens a window into an age of religious tension, political intrigue, and mora...

London is a key site for family historians. Many researchers, seeking to trace their ancestry back through the generations, will find their trail leads to London or through it. Yet, despite the burgeoning interest in genealogy and the importance of London in so many life stories, few previous books have explored the citys history or provided guidance on the research resources family historians can use to discover the life of a London ancestor. This is the purpose of Jonathan Oatess invalua...

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...

In both 1715 and 1745 there was a major military challenge in Britain to the thrones of George I and George II, posed by Jacobite supporters of the exiled Stuart claimant. This book examines the responses of those loyal to the Hanoverian dynasty, whose efforts have been ignored or disparaged compared to the military perspective or that of the Jacobites.These efforts included those of the clergy who gave loyalist sermons, accompanied the volunteer forces against the Jacobites and ev...

Generations of Londoners from Roman times to the present day have confronted natural and man-made threats to their city. Disasters, rebellions, riots, acts of terror and war have marked the long history of the capital—and have shaped the character of its people. In this evocative account Jonathan Oates recalls in vivid detail the perils Londoners have faced and describes how they coped with them. Jack Cade's Rebellion and the Gordon Riots, the Great Plague and the Great Fire, Zeppelin raid...

From the bestselling author of John Christie of Rillington Place. "If you have an interest in post war crime and criminals this is one for you!" —Robert Bartlett, author of Blood RoyalThe trial of the year in 1950 was of Donald Hume, a North London petty thief accused of stabbing car dealer Stanley Setty to death, of cutting up his corpse and dropping his body parts from an airplane. The press and public were horrified and fascinated by the details. But Hu...