The Wicked Boy

Shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction 2017 The gripping, fascinating account of a shocking murder case that sent late Victorian Britain into a frenzy, by the number one bestselling, multi-award-winning author of The Suspicions of Mr Whicher 'Her research is needle-sharp and her period detail richly atmospheric, but what is most heartening about this truly remarkable book is the story of real-life redemption that it brings to light' John Carey, Sunday Times Early in the morning of Monday 8 July 1895, thirteen-year-old Robert Coombes and his twelve-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, leaving the boys and their mother at home for the summer. Over the next ten days Robert and Nattie spent extravagantly, pawning family valuables to fund trips to the theatre and the seaside. During this time nobody saw or heard from their mother, though the boys told neighbours she was visiting relatives. As the sun beat down on the Coombes house, an awful smell began to emanate from the building. When the police were finally called to investigate, what they found in one of the bedrooms 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.

Winner of the 2017 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime Book! From the internationally bestselling author, a deeply researched and atmospheric murder mystery of late Victorian-era London In the summer of 1895, Robert Coombes (age 13) and his brother Nattie (age 12) were seen spending lavishly around the docklands of East London -- for ten days in July, they ate out at coffee houses and took trips to the seaside and the theater. The boys told neighbors they had been left home alone while their mother visited family in Liverpool, but their aunt was suspicious. When she eventually forced the brothers to open the house to her, she found the badly decomposed body of their mother in a bedroom upstairs. Robert and Nattie were arrested for matricide and sent for trial at the Old Bailey. Robert confessed to having stabbed his mother, but his lawyers argued that he was insane. Nattie struck a plea and gave evidence against his brother. The court heard testimony about Robert's severe headaches, his fascination with violent criminals and his passion for 'penny dreadfuls', the pulp fiction of the day. He seemed to feel no remorse for what he had done, and neither the prosecution nor the defense could find a motive for the murder. The judge sentenced the thirteen-year-old to detention in Broadmoor, the most infamous criminal lunatic asylum in the land. Yet Broadmoor turned out to be the beginning of a new life for Robert--one that would have profoundly shocked anyone who thought they understood the Wicked Boy. At a time of great tumult and uncertainty, Robert Coombes's case crystallized contemporary anxieties about the education of the working classes, the dangers of pulp fiction, and evolving theories of criminality, childhood, and insanity. With riveting detail and rich atmosphere, Kate Summerscale recreates this terrible crime and its aftermath, uncovering an extraordinary story of man's capacity to overcome the past.

"False Reality, But True," is about the separate yet parallel journeys of two men and how both are touched with the grace of true love which is eternally seared to the beat of their hearts. The younger man's love acts as a hope, a powerful strength, pushing him through the gut of war and death, leaving him searching endlessly and tirelessly for the woman he loves. From the memories of their love, to the promises they made, he vows to find her before death scrapes her away, a flower to a withered form. The older man's love acts as a curse, condemning him to a life of heartache after a lost love that can never be redeemed. Vengeance to his love, the missing voice to his heart, he never rests as he seeks his last and final calling. Mysticism hides throughout their journeys and their unique connection unravels as their brutal fight for survival exposes the power of love and goodness in heroic proportions.

Take an evolutionary journey through time and space in an unexpected vegan book that includes branding, hunting, spanking, torture, death and cannibalism. 21st Century Historian (Gentile Rainn): On occasion, before dying out and destroying themselves, the meat-eaters were seen hanging around back alleys of pubs drinking and fighting, sometimes sodomizing each other. 21st Century Historian (Herb Dean): If you look at things with hindsight, the meat-eaters never really had a chance. I mean, they were so hypocritical to the point where they would have one animal, whom they loved and cared for, living with them (Some of these animals were referred to as dogs. Note the dyslexic reference to God), and in the same moment would bleed and suffer another animal so they could devour its charred flesh for supper. Local Vegan (Said Huster): The idea that vegetarians and meat-eaters were both Homo sapiens is a post-mortem thought gone the way of the moo-cow. Homo sapiens were by nature very self-gratifying. In other words, they didn't care what they murdered or whom they hurt in crimes of hunger and passion. They acted very cruelly towards one another. Religions were developed to try to right these instinctual behaviors, but these religions did little to deter most Homo sapiens hell-bent on self-delusions of pride. Sometime around the turn of the twenty-fourth century, the first true Homo nexus was born. (See also Homo vegetare.) 21st Century Historian (Herb Dean): Moo-cows became extinct, though it is unknown whether this happened before or after the demise of the human (meat-eater) omnivore. A strain of CuuD Disease (almost always spelled capital C, lower case u, lower case u, capital D), a mutation of mad cow disease, killed roughly 99 percent of the cows, roughly two-thirds of the carnivores on the land, and most human omnivores. It is believed the other human omnivores destroyed themselves through wars, terrorist acts and unhealthy diets, or starved to death rather than eat vegetables. 21st Century Historian (Willow Whittier): It is said the last meat-eater died sometime around the turn of the 23rd century. His name was said to have been Ronald McDonald.

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