A Tale of Two Murders

September 1, 2018
An exhaustive look into the passionate love affair that led to one of the most infamous murders in 1920s England.Moving beyond the standard courtroom drama, Somerset Maugham Award winner Thompson (Agatha Christie: A Mysterious Life, 2018, etc.) painstakingly details the life and death of Edith Thompson, an Essex woman who gained notoriety in 1922 as she and her lover stood trial for the murder of her husband. The secret romance between Edith and Freddy Bywaters captivated and shocked a nation, as her love letters were introduced as evidence during their trial. For more than a year, Edith had cherished what few precious moments she could spend alone with her younger lover. The bulk of the narrative focuses on these brief trysts as described in Edith's writing, although the chronology of events becomes a bit knotted as the story reaches its tragic end. There was little doubt of Bywaters' guilt when he was accused of fatally stabbing Edith's husband, but as the intimate details of her affair became public, her role in the death of her husband was called into question. Although never intended for an audience, Edith's love letters, which "were perceived to redefine the concept of shamelessness," earned her lasting notoriety while also sealing her fate. Female sexuality, adultery, abortion: Edith wrote honestly about the issues affecting her and many other women but were deemed too taboo to discuss openly. As elaborately chronicled by the author, who displays a profound sympathy for her subject, Edith's own words were enough to condemn her in the court of public opinion well before she was sentenced to death in a court of law.This meticulously researched account of a fatal love affair carefully questions the nature of guilt and capital punishment in polite society, offering up a more profound lesson than is likely to be found in a typical true crime novel.

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November 5, 2018
Thompson (Agatha Christie: A Mysterious Life) provides the definitive look at a British cause célèbre in this riveting and multifaceted study of the notorious Thompson-Bywaters murder, the first such study to make use of all the Home Office files on the case. Edith Thompson (no relation to the author) was charged with plotting the murder of her husband, Percy, a crime actually carried out by Edith’s lover, Francis Bywaters, on October 2, 1922. Edith and Percy were walking home after attending a theatrical performance in London when Percy was fatally stabbed by a man later identified as Bywaters. Though there was no strong evidence that Edith had foreknowledge of the murder, her lies to the police about her relationship with Bywaters led her to be charged. The pair were convicted, and both were executed. Thompson leaves no doubt of Edith’s innocence, no matter what she expressed in letters to her paramour that were made public at trial, and makes a convincing case that Edith’s execution was tantamount to a second murder. Thompson’s detailed description of prevailing attitudes about the role of women in British society gives the book a broader social relevance than most true crime books.

November 1, 2018
London, October 1922. Edith Thompson and her husband, Percy, were on the way home from the theater. A man, Freddy Bywaters, came out of the shadows and murdered Edith's husband. It turned out that Bywaters was Edith's lover; they were both charged with Percy's murder, and they were both convicted and executed. In this intense and precise account of the case and its aftermath, the author explores the possibility that Edith was unfairly convicted; Freddy claimed several times that Edith wasn't involved, and it is quite possible he was telling the truth, not merely lying to save the life of the woman he loved. Thompson puts the case in vivid historical context: the early years of the twentieth century were tumultuous in many ways, and the empowerment of women, both politically and sexually, led to widespread changes to the traditional social structure. Was Edith Thompson, an intelligent and ambitious woman, truly guilty of orchestrating her husband's murder? Or did she fall victim to a society and a legal system that refused to accept that a woman who commits adultery might be innocent of murder? A terrific book: compassionate, nuanced, and thought-provoking.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)