The Lady in the Cellar by Sinclair McKay

The Lady in the Cellar

by Sinclair McKay

'Gripping, gothic and deeply poignant' Mail on Sunday

Standing four storeys tall in an elegant Bloomsbury terrace, number 4, Euston Square was a well-kept, respectable boarding house, whose tenants felt themselves to be on the rise in Victorian London. But beneath this genteel veneer lay a murderous darkness. For on 9th May 1879, the body of a former
resident, Matilda Hacker, was discovered by chance in the coal cellar. The ensuing investigation stripped bare the dark side of Victorian domesticity, revealing violence, sex and scandal, and became the first celebrity case of the early tabloids.

Someone must have had full knowledge of what had happened to Matilda Hacker. For someone in that house had killed her. So how could the murderer prove so elusive?

In this true story, Sinclair McKay meticulously evaluates the evidence and, through first-hand sources, giving a gripping account that sheds new light on a mystery that eluded Scotland Yard.

Reviewed by wyvernfriend on

3 of 5 stars

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This reads like a murder mystery, but unlike a murder mystery this one isn't solved at the end. There's a body under coals, badly decomposed. The house belongs to a family who take in boarders and this appears to be a boarder who has left. It has all the elements of a good mystery. Eccentric people, immigrants trying to make good, a maid that may or may not be the lover of several of the characters and was accused herself but she turned it around on almost everyone else and added some gothic spice to the mix. Fueled by popular newspapers this was a mess of a case from the start and it's still not clear who dunnit.
Interesting read.

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  • 11 October, 2019: Reviewed