Crippen - by John Boyne (Paperback)

About the Book

This beautifully drawn novel re-creates the amazing escape attempt of one of history's most notorious killers. "Genuinely thrilling . . . "--"Sunday Tribune" (UK).

Book Synopsis

An accomplished, intricately plotted novel, John Boyne's Crippen brilliantly reimagines the amazing escape attempt of one of history's most notorious killers and marks the outstanding American debut of one of Ireland's best young novelists.

July 1910: A gruesome discovery has been made at 39 Hilldrop Crescent, Camden.

Chief Inspector Walter Dew of Scotland Yard did not expect the house to be empty. Nor did he expect to find a body in the cellar. Buried under the flagstones are the remains of Cora Crippen, former music-hall singer and wife of Dr. Hawley Crippen. No one would have thought the quiet, unassuming Dr. Crippen capable of murder, yet the doctor and his mistress have disappeared from London, and now a full-scale hunt for them has begun.

Across the Channel in Antwerp, the S.S. Montrose has just set off on its two-week voyage to North America. Slipping in among the first-class passengers is a Mr. John Robinson, accompanied by his teenage son, Edmund. The pair may be hoping for a quiet, private voyage, but in the close confines of a luxury ocean liner, anonymity is rare. And with others aboard looking for romance, or violence, or escape from their past in Europe, it will take more than just luck for the Robinsons to survive the voyage unnoticed.

Review Quotes

"Had Charles Dickens been around to turn his talents to fictionalizing the classic Crippen murder case, the result might well have been close to this superb, multifaceted novel. ... Boyne brings all the characters in this drama to life, skillfully shifting perspectives and using flashbacks and flash-forwards. ... Boyne is to be commended for his ability to alternate between Wodehousian humor and Edwardian noir." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A wonderfully evocative and detailed tale... Hugely enjoyable." --Macavity's (UK)

"Boyne is a skillful storyteller... genuinely thrilling." --Sunday Tribune (UK)

"Boyne has the ability to create memorable characters, and to unfold their various stories in a tightly controlled narrative that shifts backwards and forwards, doling out enough information to keep readers on the edge of their metaphorical seats." --The Irish Times

"Crippen has confirmed him as one of the best and original of the new generation of Irish writers." --Irish Examiner

About the Author

John Boyne is the author of Crippen, The Thief of Time, Next of Kin, The Boy at the Top of the Mountain, and the New York Times and internationally bestselling The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. Boyne won two Irish Book Awards (the People's Choice and the Children's) for The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, and his novels have been translated into more than thirty languages. Ireland's Sunday Business Post named him one of the forty people under forty in Ireland "likely to be the movers and shakers who will define the country's culture, politics, style and economics in 2005 and beyond." Crippen was nominated for the Sunday Independent Hughes & Hughes Irish Novel of the Year Award. He lives with his partner in Dublin.