In thrilling narrative, we follow a fugitive killer through the streets of London, citizen detectives clamouring to help officials close the net. This was hugely shocking in some areas, particularly how segregated certain groups of women were and the injustice of how the process was dealt with, which were at times literally based upon class and gender. A couple of them did get under my skin, but a few of them are really more interesting than upsetting. And I felt she used them really well to show some of the aspects of the society and the culture of the time. The stories go into detail the law that was broken- at times by both the victim and the perpetrator- and raised the question of whether the actual law had, in part, helped cause the crime itself.

I think my main problem with the book is that it’s very repetitive, with a lot of the same language and small amounts of analysis being used. My library gave me the option to let them know I want it added to their collection, so I did that to both the print and the audio versions. The sad thing is that I suspect it still goes on even in our “civilised” countries, but these days it’s probably immigrant women who get the worst of it.I’m sorry, I didn’t take a note of the specific years in my notes, but all of them are between 1500 and 1700. My favourites were probably the ones where we have records to show the families of the deceased making every effort to prove their child's innocence or bring their murderer to justice.

Forfeiture was not enough for a harsh religiously-influenced state – the body of the suicide would then be desecrated before being buried in an unconsecrated pit, which of course at that time meant no hope of eternal salvation. She has also written a chapter titled 'Notebooks, Play and Legal Education at Middle Temple' in Mapping the Early Modern Inns of Court: Law, Literature and Identity, edited by Jackie Watson and Emma Rhatigan, due to be published by Palgrave. The murder is gruesomely told as it was in the pamphlets of the time, and the investigation seems efficient and surprisingly similar to modern investigations, relying on physical clues, witnesses, background checks on suspects, etc.It’s informative and interesting, and it’s also a little appalling to see perspectives from the 1600s coming back into fashion today. She shows how the street names in the surrounding area originated from the various markets held there – Milk Street, Bread Street, etc. The most prominent theme is that of suicide (or 'felo de se') - the early moderns had different ideas about suicide which carried its own sentence and had very negative social consequences for the remaining family (e.