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How the Rillington Place murders turned Britain into a nation of ghouls

With titillating newspaper coverage making John Christie’s trial a hot ticket, everyone seemed to want to peep behind the curtains of the house of horror – or even break in

28 September 2024

9:00 AM

28 September 2024

9:00 AM

The Peepshow: The Murders at 10 Rillington Place Kate Summerscale

Bloomsbury Circus, pp.288, 22

‘You never seem to get a good murder nowadays.’ With this ‘fretful complaint’ George Orwell imagined newspaper readers bemoaning the decline of the classic English murder. Gone were the ‘old domestic poisoning dramas’ – a solicitor or dentist killing his wife in a quiet suburban home – which made the perfect News of the World spread to curl up with after Sunday lunch.

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