Death at the Priory: Love, Sex and Murder in Victorian England

by James Ruddick

Book Overview

In 1875 the beautiful widow Florence Ricardo married the handsome and successful young attorney Charles Bravo, hoping to escape the scandals of her past. But Bravo proved to be a brutal and conniving... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0871138328
• ISBN13: 9780871138323
• Release Date: January 2002
• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
• Length: 209 Pages
• Weight: 1.28 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.7" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

A genuine scoop on a great story

A well-written account of a marriage and a murder, gripping from the first page and packed with new information about this unusual case. The Gloria Mundi review is wrong - I checked her sources. The Yseult Bridges book does NOT cover the new information regarding Jamaica in Ruddick's account, and neither does the 1989 book, Murder at the Priory. Bridges refers to Jamaica but does not include the information Ruddick uncovered in his researches on that island - namely the extent of the estate; dates of occupation and so on. I thought Ms Mundi's review rather churlish and carping given the pleasure she obviously derived from Ruddick's book. It is clear that the Bravo case will go on fascinating and intriguing generations to come. But this is a classic of its kind and by far the best work to date, encompassing broad social history and issues about marriage and womanhood that are both interesting and still relevant. I just wish they'd make a movie of the case!

A Page Turner

I don't read many 'true crime' books because it's so difficult for a writer to combine the amount of research required with a fast-paced readable style. You either get a racy, fast-moving story that's light on the research or an extensively researched story that plods along bogging down in details. James Ruddick, however, did all the research but has not bored the reader with unnecessary detail.He also gives us just enough background to the story, especially the Victorian attitudes to women and their appointed "place" in society. It's enough to make you gnash your teeth, and certainly enough to make you sympathize with the women in the story. I started this book with no great expectations, but I found myself reading it when I should have been occupied elsewhere. It's a treat to read a well researched, well written book like this one.

A real historical who-done-it written well...

I don't usually pick up real crime stories. I enjoy forensic science mysteries, but the evil that men do to others in our world I get enough of just from reading history and bioethics, let alone reading true crime stuff. Yet in reading about this book, I got the feeling it was more a case study done in history than a true crime book as typically seen today that exploits the pain of others, who are often still living, in order to make money. I abhor that and won't purchase books like that.Anyway, Ruddick did a phenomenal job of case study and research into this crime. I can see why it was so fascinating. Because it happened over 100 years ago, the impact on the families involved have lessened over time. Though many of them bare scars in the families (usually economical), those involved are long dead and the stigma of the situation has receded from social memory.I have read a lot on the Victorian age, and have done quite a bit of research on this time period as concerns the disabled and deaf in the United States. In doing this, you come across all the different mores of society that were held before the turn of the twentieth century. Women were trapped into their marriages literally by legal boundaries and societal mores, and the fact that men could be abusive in any way possible made no difference to society. The woman was expected to subject herself to anything her husband would dish out, things that in this day and age would get him arrested, and certainly would provide the means for a divorce with no stigma attached to a woman for doing this. Spousal abuse would also allow the woman to take her children with her, to avoid putting them in a position of taking her place in the abusive cycle. Back then, the women were given no choices in anything, and Ruddick is very fair in explaining this after he solves the mystery. Ruddick does pretty much solve the mystery to my satisfaction, in that he handles it as a case study, and though there is no 'smoking gun' (after all this time, there wouldn't be) there is certainly enough written, archived information to allow a professional researcher into this area to say 'this is probably what happened'...and have that decision stand on its own. I think if this case were tried in court today, they would find the same conclusion as Ruddick did. What is different today is that the murderer would have been sentenced differently under today's laws and understandings of the cycle of abuse and fear, whereas the guilty party back then would have been either in jail for the rest of their lives, or would have hung. As it was the guilty party lived only shortly after the murder, and this was probably partly from guilt and partly from the physical abuse suffered at the hands of the man who was murdered (and other earlier abuse from another man). A truly well-researched, well thought out conclusion to a long-lasting mystery...Karen Sadler,Science Education,University of Pittsburgh

A Classic Murder Mystery, and True

It was called "one of the most mysterious poisoning cases ever recorded" by none other than Agatha Christie, and if you have not heard of the murder of Charles Bravo, you would have when it created a sensation in 1876. It has been investigated, reinvestigated, fictionalized, filmed, and solved by different experts who have shown the same sort of unflagging interest in the case as others have for that of Jack the Ripper. It is astonishing that although the crime was never solved and the murderer never punished, now 125 years after the case made its headlines, a plausible and new solution has been meticulously proposed by journalist and researcher James Ruddick. In _Death at the Priory: Sex, Love, and Murder in Victorian England_, not only do we get a good look at some of the dark underside of Victorian life, but also we learn that some traces of crime never fade, and effects of it may last for generations.Ruddick's characters, especially Bravo's wife, Florence, are just as colorful as any from a novel of the period. The inquest after the excruciating death by poisoning of Charles Bravo was a cause célèbre. As in any good murder mystery, there were plenty of suspects, all of whom had motive to kill Bravo. Perhaps Bravo was drinking and suicidal and took the poison himself. George Griffiths, Florence's coachman, had made what could be interpreted as an actual threat against the man who fired him. Jane Cox, Florence's housekeeper and companion, had debts, children to care for, and a position with a mistress she truly cared about, and Bravo was trying to fire her, too. Florence could have done him in because life with him was intolerable for many reasons. Dr. Gully, her former lover, was suspected (by Agatha Christie, no less) of killing Bravo in revenge for stealing her away. Ruddick explains how the police system at the time was inadequate, only starting an investigation eight days after Bravo's death and failing to get details right, details that Ruddick himself has uncovered. Ruddick, in true whodunit fashion, shows how the evidence against each suspect is quite convincing, and then shows how other evidence exculpates each, until he circles around again to the one he has fingered.It is probably wrong to think that this famous case has produced its last bit of speculation, but Ruddick's explanation is clever without being too clever. He has gone to The Priory and found evidence that the inquest should have investigated at the time. He has been to Jamaica to discover surprising facts about Jane Cox, and he has interviewed the descendants of those involved. He has discovered that some descendants could not bring themselves, even a century and a quarter after the scandal, to discuss the events with him, and that some of the families involved never recovered from the shame of it. His explanation satisfactorily fits into the Victorian atmosphere he has taken pains to describe. It is a suspenseful puzzle, showing the British world at the

an atmospheric masterpiece

I read this book in England in October and considered it to be the book of the year. Ruddick's strength is his ability to take lots of disparate themes and thread them all together in a thrilling page-turner. On one level the book is a straightforward murder mystery - was Charles Bravo murdered by his wife, his wife's lover, his housekeeper or the stableman? The plot twists and turns like something from Patricia Cornwell or Elizabeth George. But then Ruddick begins sowing into the story other dimensions: he looks at the repressive nature of Victorian society, and particularly at the appalling way it treated its women. He reveals the shocking consequences of transgressing the moral codes of the time. He brings to life the atmosphere of London in 1876, the wealth and poverty, the strict social hierarchy, the conversations, appearances and personalites: his prose style is rich with the flavour of the period. Towards the end, the book changes gear and becomes a modern thriller, with Ruddick himself travelling the world in search of the proof he needs to unmask the killer. He knows who committed the crime - so do we - and the pleasure is in watching him slowly piece together the evidence. The last hundred pages were so compulsive I took the phone off the hook. Ultimately Ruddick succeeds in taking several genres - crime, romance, history - and weaving them into a masterpiece of suspense. This book was thrilling to read and will be selling for years...