The Suspicions of Mr Whicher: or the Murder at Road Hill House

On the morning of June 29th 1860, the Kent family woke up to find their 3 year old boy missing from the house...only to find his body in the privy outside. What intrigued everyone was that the house was found locked from inside therefore all the inmates became suspects – the father, the siblings, the servants...

The police were baffled; Jack Whicher, one of the most distinguished detectives of the time, arrived at Road Hill House* after two weeks and faced the horrible fact - to unravel the mystery for the mourning family where every one of them was a suspect.

From the open window of the drawing room...to the lost night-dress...to the blood stains...to the missing murder weapon, Whicher tried his best to reconstruct the scene but could find nothing more than circumstantial evidence...

It's a true story and the case is in the police files – it's even published on the MET police website – if you want to ruin it for yourself.

The book is a work of genius; a masterpiece – one can see [read] the amount of research and effort Kate Summerscale has put in to recreate the story. It is one of the best books I have read in the last few years. A must read.

*The village of Road is now spelt as Rode; the Road Hill house also changed its name to Langham House in 1870's

Adios Amigo: Vish Dhamija

It's not surprising that we start liking products, services and celebrities based on behaviours and likings of our peers, friends and colleagues – after all we spend considerable amount of time with them. What might stump you is that I picked up [sic] a liking for a particular celebrity [hereafter referred to as the celeb] only because one of my colleagues despised her.
It all started one day by two of us [another friend and me] – as we returned after a heated discussion on the celeb at lunch. We slyly planned that to have more loud discussions and interesting lunches [and also tease and annoy our friend] we should call me an ardent fan of the celeb –the rest is history. As new people joined the department, totally clueless of the little conspiracy, they were convinced that I was a die-hard fan and hence some of them actually brought me stickers and pictures of the celeb. Some of these are still pasted on the soft-board in my office.
Unfortunately, my celeb-hater friend is moving on [end of this month] and he will no longer be working with us in the same office. The left side of my brain tells me that I should pull down the pictures, as they carry no meaning after he's gone...there's no fun. Nostalgia might keep them there for a few days, but I guess it's time to move on.

Good luck RnB!