The Bank Holiday Murders by Tom Wescott (2014)

[GUT]

G'day David

Do they price cars at $49,999 in France so as not to scare you with 50,000. I worked in retail for many years and the boffins swore that the 99c thing worked.

[mariab]

99 Francs by Beigbeder, hein? ;-)

And btw I hope you're fine, David.


The lack of an index bothered me too as a first reflex, but for the part of the book where it would really have mattered, AKA the landlords, they're all grouped together in 50p in the middle of the book. Plus the real intense research about them has only recently started, after Tom and Debs brought this important factor to our attention.

[Tom_Wescott]

Thanks, Birbs. As I mentioned before, I started outlining an index but it looked ridiculous. The book is only 200 pages and pretty much all of it is talking about 12 people.

GUT,

I don't like that either. I'd LOVE to have the promo discount across all the countries, but currently Kindle just lets us do that in the US and UK.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Cogidubnus]

Buy it folks...at 99c what have you to lose?

Frankly I bought it as a full price paperback and really rate it...

All the best

Dave

[GUT]

Buy it folks...at 99c what have you to lose?

Frankly I bought it as a full price paperback and really rate it...

All the best

Dave

I've got the book but was gong to get the Kindle for search facility.

[Barnaby]

The book is superb and foundational in my opinion. As Tom notes, it doesn't need an index as there aren't that many characters to keep track. Hopefully for Tom this sale will increase the word of mouth and ultimately result in many more sales at higher prices!

[DVV]

99 Francs by Beigbeder, hein? ;-)

And btw I hope you're fine, David.

Hello Maria,

I'm fine, thanks.

Yep, this foolish Beigbeder !

[Tom_Wescott]

The Bank Holiday Murders was picked as one of the 9 best summer reads by indiereader.com. That's pretty awesome and totally unexpected. Check out their recommendations here...

http://indiereader.com/2014/07/9-best-summer-indie-reads/

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Wickerman]

You earned it Tom.

[Barnaby]

Congrats, Tom!

[GUT]

The Bank Holiday Murders was picked as one of the 9 best summer reads by indiereader.com. That's pretty awesome and totally unexpected. Check out their recommendations here...

http://indiereader.com/2014/07/9-best-summer-indie-reads/

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Congrats Tom.

[Patrick S]

I don't like that either. I'd LOVE to have the promo discount across all the countries, but currently Kindle just lets us do that in the US and UK.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Hi, Tom. I picked up the book on Kindle. I'll finish it today, depending on how much time frees up. Thus far, I'm fascinated by the comparisons and conclusions you've drawn between the Tabram and Smith murders. Fantastic research. Well done. I'm inclined to agree that these murders have been misunderstood for a century. Good luck!

[GUT]

GUT,

I don't like that either. I'd LOVE to have the promo discount across all the countries, but currently Kindle just lets us do that in the US and UK.

G'day Tom

Just an ongoing problem here some books we cannot even buy, your book almost cost me more for postage than the book and so many we can't buy on Kindle at all.

[Qlder]

Lodging House Proprietors' motives for cover-up

Hello Tom
I am a long time Casebook reader, but hadn't looked in for a long time until a few days ago, and then I just happenned onto this thread by chance. I regret that I am not in a position to get hold of a copy of your book on the early Whitechapel murders (seriously unfinancial at present), but I have certainly enjoyed reading this thread and getting a little flavour of the direction you have taken in looking at the case.

At various points in the thread (posts 169, 189, 205) there have been discussions about possible reasons for the lodging house proprietors to cover-up or impede the police investigation.
May I dare to suggest one as yet unmentioned possible motive. (You may not like it. Indeed, I expect you to not like it at all, given your lengthy sparring with someone no longer hereabouts.)

Suppose you are running a criminal enterprise based around lodging houses.
Suppose you discover that the senior policeman in charge of your neck of the woods has a somewhat feeble-minded young male relative who has a propensity for violence against women.
If you were able to induce him into joining with your thugs in meting out vengence on prostitutes who had transgressed against the local gang, you would then have something with which to blackmail the senior policeman in charge of policing your lodging house operations. That is the kind of 'leverage' organized criminals crave. It's a powerful motive.
(Perhaps the relationship between the senior policeman and the young man is also tinged with scandal, adding another layer to the blackmail, as it seems that they were not related by blood nor by marriage, yet others believed them to be related.)

Of course, all of this is pure speculation, but I find it interesting that it would account for rumours of a cover-up by the police (which in this scenario is in fact a cover-up for a particular policeman) and rumours of blackmail of someone "high up".
This is also the kind of dangerous secret that could get someone killed with extreme prejudice as a warning to others, since exposure of the blackmail would lead to the immediate resignation of the policeman in question, and your carefully cultivated senior police influence vanishes, with a reactive, showy police crack-down on your manor for the benefit of press and public to boot.
The scandal of organized criminals blackmailing a senior policeman is the kind of thing that the Victorian establishment would have moved heaven and earth to hush up, which would account for Macnaghten's memo and Douglas Munro's use of the expression, 'a very hot potato'. (Even today, police and politicians would very much prefer to bury this type of scandal.)
The senior policeman is known to have had his own mental health issues and committed suicide some years later. I needn't put the family name directly here, since I'm sure anyone reading this thread will instantly recognize the candidate, and if they don't, they should go and read more of everything on Casebook.

Anyhow, that's my 2p worth of contribution, although there may be some debate about that valuation.

Tom, although I haven't yet got your book, I look forward to having it someday. I have certainly enjoyed reading many of your thought provoking (and non-sense debunking) posts over the years.

Regards
Qlder

[Barnaby]

Qlder,

I like your scenario in general and something like this could certainly have occurred. Specifically, however, I don't think there was a family relationship between the senior policeman and the young relative to whom you allude.

Although this policeman remains an interesting character to me anyway!