We are delighted to welcome Hallie Rubenhold to the Authors’ Club to talk about Story of a Murder: The Wives, The Mistress and Dr Crippen (Doubleday)

Story of a Murder is a grand experiment in subverting a famous history. A feminist retelling of the historical true-crime story of infamous wife-murderer Dr Crippen in Edwardian England, brought to justice by an extraordinary group of music hall women

On 1 February, 1910, vivacious music hall performer, Belle Elmore, suddenly vanished from her north London home, causing alarm among her circle of female friends, the entertainers of the Music Hall Ladies’ Guild who demanded an immediate investigation. They could not have known what they would provoke: the unearthing of a gruesome secret, followed by a fevered manhunt for the prime suspect: Belle’s husband, medical fraudster, Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen.

Hiding in the shadows of this evergreen tale is Crippen’s typist and lover, Ethel Le Neve – was she really just ‘an innocent young girl’ in thrall to a powerful older man as so many people have since reported? And what is the story behind the death of Crippen’s first wife, Charlotte, who died so quietly, never to be heard of again?

In this epic examination of one of the most infamous murders of the twentieth century, prizewinning social historian Hallie Rubenhold gives voice to those who have never properly been heard – the women. Featuring a carnival cast of eccentric entertainers, glamorous lawyers, zealous detectives, medics and liars, Story of a Murder is forensically researched and multi-layered, offering the contemporary reader an electrifying snapshot of Britain and America at the dawn of the modern era.

Story of a Murder takes us beyond the infamous Dr Crippen to the lives impacted by him, the society within which he moved, and the public’s appetite to be shocked and scandalised. It’s terrific. Ian Rankin

Hallie Rubenhold is the No.1 Sunday Times bestselling and Baillie Gifford prize-winning author of The Five: The Women Killed by Jack the Ripper. A renowned social historian whose expertise lies in revealing stories of previously unknown women and episodes in history, she is the author of The Covent Garden Ladies which was the inspiration behind BBC TV’s Harlots. Her biographical work, Lady Worsley’s Whim, was dramatized by the BBC as The Scandalous Lady. She has also written two acclaimed novels Mistress of My Fate and The French Lesson which give voice to the women written out by eighteenth-century literature.

To book please contact the booking office at bookings@nlc.org.uk or call 020 7968 0912.

The two-course lunch, followed by coffee, costs £39. It’s in the Lady Violet Room and we start with drinks at 12:30pm.  Please book early and inform the club of any dietary requirements.