SCOTLAND YARD

The story of Scotland Yard told through some of its most famous cases.

Read, author of The Iron Seas, Human Game, and Winston Churchill Reporting, begins this entertaining, atmospheric history in 1811, with London’s gruesome Radcliffe Highway Murders, then quickly backtracks to 1753 and the establishment of Henry Fielding’s Bow Street Runners, a small, private constabulary force. In 1829, Scotland Yard, London’s first established police force with a new power—to investigate crimes—was born amid the heyday of sensational murders, lurid newspaper coverage, and later, some infamous criminals’ wax appearances at Madame Tussauds. After their successful investigation into a grave-robbing scheme, the organization gained praise and publicity. The 1840 murder of Lord William Russell drew Queen Victoria’s attention, and Scotland Yard took heat for not solving it initially; but then they did—the butler did it. Dickens and Thackeray attended the hanging, “both repulsed at what they saw.” In 1842, the Yard added a “plainclothes Detective Branch—the first of its kind,” and the group quickly solved the infamous Bermondsey murders. The Yard’s reputation was tarnished in 1872 when four chief inspectors were bribed by two con men, resulting in a significant shakeup in the force and the creation of the Criminal Investigation Department in 1878. Just over a decade later, the Yard took on the case of the Thames Torso Murderer, a serial killer case that remained unsolved. In 1890, the New Scotland Yard got a new home, a granite building “notable for its use of electricity.” Along with forensic pathology, they began to incorporate fingerprinting in their investigations. In 1910, the Yard successfully pursued a killer across the Atlantic. These crimes and others, Read notes near the end of this surprisingly lively narrative, “defined modern detective work and still resonate today.”

True-crime enthusiasts will relish these many murders most foul.