
The Wicked Boy
The Mystery of a Victorian Child Murderer
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Narrated by:
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Corrie James
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By:
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Kate Summerscale
About this listen
Early in the morning of Monday, July 8, 1895, 13-year-old Robert Coombes and his 12-year-old brother, Nattie, set out from their small, yellow-brick terraced house in East London to watch a cricket match at Lord's. Their father had gone to sea the previous Friday, the boys told their neighbors, and their mother was visiting her family in Liverpool.
Over the next 10 days, Robert and Nattie spent extravagantly, pawning their parents' valuables to fund trips to the theatre and the seaside. But as the sun beat down on the Coombes house, a strange smell began to emanate from the building. When the police were finally called to investigate, the discovery they made sent the press into a frenzy of horror and alarm, and Robert and Nattie were swept up in a criminal trial that echoed the outrageous plots of the penny dreadful novels that Robert loved to read.
In The Wicked Boy, Kate Summerscale has uncovered a fascinating true story of murder and morality. It is not just a meticulous examination of a shocking Victorian case but also a compelling account of its aftermath and of man's capacity to overcome the past.
©2016 Kate Summerscale (P)2016 Recorded BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
A Civil War veteran who perpetrated one of the most ghastly mass slaughters in the annals of U.S. crime. A nineteenth-century female serial killer whose victims included three husbands and six of her own children. A Gilded Age “Bluebeard” who did away with as many as fifty wives throughout the country. A decorated World War I hero who orchestrated a murder that stunned Jazz Age America.
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Another necessary work by Schector
- By Brandon on 12-27-22
By: Harold Schechter
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The Devil's Gentleman
- Privilege, Poison, and the Trial That Ushered in the Twentieth Century
- By: Harold Schechter
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 15 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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The wayward son of a revered Civil War general, Roland Molineux enjoyed good looks, status, and fortune - hardly the qualities of a prime suspect in a series of shocking, merciless cyanide killings. Molineux's subsequent indictment for murder led to two explosive trials and a sex-infused scandal that shocked the nation. Bringing to life Manhattan's Gilded Age, Schechter captures all the colors of the tumultuous legal proceedings.
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A Book Without an Accompanying Wiki Page Is Always A Treat
- By Carolina on 02-27-17
By: Harold Schechter
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One Hot Summer
- Dickens, Darwin, Disraeli, and the Great Stink of 1858
- By: Rosemary Ashton
- Narrated by: Corrie James
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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While 1858 in London may have been noteworthy for its broiling summer months and the related stench of the sewage-filled Thames River, the year is otherwise little remembered. And yet, historian Rosemary Ashton reveals in this compelling microhistory, 1858 was marked by significant, if unrecognized, turning points. For ordinary people, and also for the rich, famous, and powerful, the months from May to August turned out to be a summer of consequence.
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A very good history.
- By Mack Tennyson on 02-13-19
By: Rosemary Ashton
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Death in the Air
- The True Story of a Serial Killer, the Great London Smog, and the Strangling of a City
- By: Kate Winkler Dawson
- Narrated by: Graeme Malcolm
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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A real-life thriller in the vein of The Devil in the White City, Kate Winkler Dawson's debut, Death in the Air, is a gripping, historical narrative of a serial killer, an environmental disaster, and an iconic city struggling to regain its footing. In winter 1952, London automobiles and thousands of coal-burning hearths belched particulate matter into the air. But the smog that descended on December fifth of 1952 was different; it was a type that held the city hostage for five long days.
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Interesting
- By irene on 11-27-17
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The Book of Phobias and Manias
- A History of Obsession
- By: Kate Summerscale
- Narrated by: Stephanie Racine
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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The Book of Phobias and Manias is a thrilling compendium of 99 obsessions that have shaped us all, the rare and the familiar, from ablutophobia (a horror of washing) to syllogomania (a compulsion to hoard) to zoophobia (a fear of animals).
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Excellent!
- By Christine on 12-27-22
By: Kate Summerscale
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The Sinners All Bow
- Two Authors, One Murder, and the Real Hester Prynne
- By: Kate Winkler Dawson
- Narrated by: Kate Winkler Dawson
- Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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On a cold winter day in 1832, Sarah Maria Cornell was found dead in a quiet farmyard in a small New England town. When her troubled past and a secret correspondence with charismatic Methodist minister Reverend Ephraim Avery was uncovered, more questions emerged. Was Sarah’s death a suicide...or something much darker? Determined to uncover the real story, Victorian writer Catharine Read Arnold Williams threw herself into the investigation as the trial was unfolding and wrote what many claim to be the first American true-crime narrative, Fall River.
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Wonderful storytelling!
- By Stephen Cronin on 05-26-25
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The Widow's Husband's Secret Lie
- A Satirical Short Story
- By: Freida McFadden
- Narrated by: Marin Ireland
- Length: 2 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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My husband is dead. I attended his funeral. I watched his casket be lowered six feet into the ground. (Actually, it may have been only five feet, but that still seems like more than enough.) And then we ate an array of finger sandwiches and deviled eggs and miniature beef wellingtons that cost more than my first car. My point is, Grant is gone. And so are all his many, many deep, dark secrets which I never really ever bothered to ask him about. He is never coming back.
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I loved it!
- By L. Wargowsky on 10-22-24
By: Freida McFadden
A Complex Story
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The narrator was VERY good.
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Full of Surprises
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What did you love best about The Wicked Boy?
Summerscale provides an excellent picture of the life and times surrounding the story, not just a narrative of the crime, arrest and trial. She takes us into the heart of London and shows us who lived there and how they lived, thrived, and died.What other book might you compare The Wicked Boy to and why?
Batavia's Graveyard by Mike Dash.Depiction of Life and Times Not Just the Crime
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Great book!
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Interesting story but...
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The author did outstanding research
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The kind of book you’re glad to have listened to.
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There was what might be considered extraneous information about characters who might have crossed paths with him, but I was fascinated by their stories, and was glad they were included. Very goal oriented readers might call this padding. I certainly will not. I listened straight through, and highly recommend this book to others.
A Historical “True Crime” with So Much More
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Kate Summerscale has done a masterful job researching and retelling this story and the surprising twist that follows.
Well done!
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