Rating: 
Summary: A Page Turner
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: A real historical who-done-it written well...
Review: 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
Rating:
Summary: an atmospheric masterpiece
Review: 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...
Rating: 
Summary: Victorian Victims
Review: In 1876 a young newlywed and Victorian aristocrat, Charles Bravo suffers a horrible death by a caustic poison in his London area mansion, the Priory. Murder! Despite four clear suspects, a Scotland Yard investigation, a highly publicized Coroner's inquest and 125 years of professional and amateur sleuthing, the murderer is not identified . . . until now! James Ruddick solves an infamous riddle in "Death At The Priory". His book is divided into three intriguing parts. The events leading up to the murder and the inital inquest provides all the suspense and mystery of an Agatha Christie yarn. Ruddick skillfully weaves Coroner's inquest testimony into facinating dialog, adding color and spice to a brisk narration. The second part enables the author to narrow the suspects and eventually identify the murderer by utilizing the wealth of research on the murder and a very creative perspective. The third part takes the reader through some of the dark secrets of Victorian wealth. In a society of double standards, even a wealthy woman becomes a prisoner within her own household. What can she do to stop being beaten, sodomized, robbed, verbally abused and nearly killed by an abusive husband? There are no help groups or laws to protect her. In the end most of the charaters involved in "Death At The Priory" are poisoned by the notoriety. For the reader there is a great deal of satisfaction from this work and a greater appreciation that today's standards, no matter how flawed, are far more preferable than the good old days of Queen Victoria. Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Nearly un-put-downable popular history
Review: In the spring of 1876 Charles Bravo, a thirty-year-old barrister, was murdered at the Priory, his home in south London. His death was a particularly horrific one as the poison that was used, a massive dose of tartar emetic (a derivative of antimony), is a highly corrosive substance. In the three days it took Bravo to die, the poison "burned through the tissue lining his alimentary canal" and ate away at his large intestine until it had all but disintegrated. The police eventually determined that Bravo's death was not a straightforward case of suicide, but who among Bravo's household or acquaintances had the means and motive to kill him? There were numerous suspects: the coachman George Griffiths, whom Bravo had recently dismissed and who had publicly prophesied his former employer's death; Bravo's wife Florence, who had suffered two miscarriages already in their five-month marriage and whom Bravo was eager to impregnate again; Florence's former lover James Gully, the respected doctor who numbered among his patients Charles Darwin and Florence Nightingale; Florence's female companion and mother figure, Jane Cox, whom Bravo had also threatened with dismissal. Despite the abundance of likely suspects, however, the Bravo murder investigation, one of the Victorian era's most infamous cases, was never solved.
Over the more than 120 years since Bravo's murder, the case has attracted considerable attention, with armchair detectives, among them Agatha Christie, attempting to puzzle out a solution to the unsolved crime. James Ruddick follows in this tradition, although he differs from his predecessors in using as evidence not only the records of the Coroner's inquest from which they derived information, but also original police records and the testimony of surviving relatives of the principals. Ruddick claims to have uncovered in his research evidence which has enabled him finally to expose the murderer. The evidence Ruddick offers is perhaps not as definitive as he suggests--while it does appear to exculpate one of the suspects, it does not prove the guilt of the person he fingers for the crime--but the author's reconstruction of the murder is indeed a persuasive one.
Death at the Priory is an example of popular history at its finest. It is fast-paced and suspenseful. The prose is highly readable. (My favorite sentence: "An unhappy woman with easy access to weedkiller had to be watched carefully.") And the story Ruddick tells--of the murder and its investigation, and of Florence's abusive first marriage and scandalous affair with James Gully--is inherently fascinating. There were occasions, however, when I wanted more information. What, for example, *was* that notorious Victorian malady "brain fever" that Florence was thought to be suffering from at one point? And what was so "famous" (as Ruddick refers to it) about the Bridge of Sighs that separated the men's quarters from the women's at Dr. Gully's clinic? (And is this bridge indeed famous, or has Ruddick transferred the epithet from the better known Bridge of Sighs in Venice?) I also had some questions, not necessarily damning, about Ruddick's reconstruction of the crime. (Why, for example, given his reconstruction, did Jane Cox go to such lengths to try to revive Charles Bravo after his collapse?) These might have been resolved at once had Ruddick been across the room from me while I was reading, but, strangely, he was not.
These minor issues aside, Ruddick's contribution to the literature on the Bravo cases makes excellent, nearly un-put-downable reading.
Debra Hamel -- book-blog reviews
Author of Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Life in Ancient Greece
Rating:
Summary: Interesting but not difinitive.
Review: Interesting but not definitive.
It was a marriage of convenience that had turned inconvenient for someone. In 1875, Florence Ricardo married Charles Bravo. He was after her money and she was seeking to cleanse her name after a lurid sex scandal by marrying respectably. After less than six months of married life he was dead and a cloud of suspicion hung over his wife and the servants of her home.
A Coroner's inquest determined that the death was murder by poisoning. But it was never able to solve who had committed the crime. The chief suspects were: The widow who resented his attempt to control her money, the groom who had been fired by the new master of the house, the lady's maid who was next line for dismissal, or the elderly doctor who was Florence's ex-lover embittered about her marriage.
This unsolved Victorian mystery has been the subject of numerous speculations for over a century. Investigative reporter James Ruddick feels that he has finally cracked the case with damming new evidence. He goes beyond the source material used by many authors and travels the world over to contact descendants of the infamous participants in the original mystery. He weaves together a narrative that he feels is the definitive solution to the case.
This book is, in my opinion, a little too concerned with showing off the intrepid exploits of the author than it is with reasoning out the evidence. While his solution is very plausible this book is by no means going to be the final word on the case.
Rating:
Summary: Nice reading
Review: It ended before that last pages of the book cause there is some reference stuff back there. It was an interesting book. But I found problems. In the inside-cover, there is a illustration of the floor plan. But that floor plan does not match the outside of the house!?! Which is wrong? I would also like to see more real pictures in it.
Rating:
Summary: A Classic Murder Mystery, and True
Review: 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 cusp of various social changes, and is irresistibly entertaining.
Rating:
Summary: intriguing look into Victorian era life
Review: James Ruddick's "Death at the Priory" examines an English murder of more than a century ago. The cast of real-life characters rivals any fictional story, and Ruddick's carefully crafted reconstruction of the death of Charles Bravo will keep you turning pages. He presents a strong case for his theory of events, although there are still no definite answers. His insights into the lives and motives of the suspects are well written.
This slice of Victorian life among the English wealthy class will open your eyes to the then prevailing attitudes about women, gender roles, property rights, and family life of that era. Women's lives were circumscribed by rigid norms, and those few who went against those norms, like Florence Bravo, the young wife of the dead man, faced strong sanctions. Highly recommended, an excellent read.
Rating:
Summary: What things were really like then
Review: James Ruddick, in Death at the Priory (Sex, Love, and Murder in Victorian England) has served a slight, but tasty, treat. This short volume will fulfill all the expectations promised by the sub-title, which is more than enough. This is historical journalism (complete with the author's own prescence throughout the story) rather a work of history as it skims the surface of the Victorian world. It is,,though, the stuff of old fashioned English murder mysteries with its mysterious poisoning, clandestine affairs, competent and brooding lady companions, and, especially, its English country house (although set on the edge of London). The author covers all of this rich territory effectively and adds to this story with all of his fascinating new research. For lovers of murder mysteries or even simply a good tale, this will be sure to please.
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