Synopses & Reviews
July 1910: A gruesome discovery has been made at 39 Hilldrop Crescent, Camden.
Chief Inspector Walter Dew of Scotland Yard did not expect the house to be empty. Nor did he expect to find a body in the cellar. Buried under the flagstones are the remains of Cora Crippen, former music-hall singer and wife of Dr. Hawley Crippen. No one would have thought the quiet, unassuming Dr. Crippen capable of murder, yet the doctor and his mistress have disappeared from London, and now a full-scale hunt for them has begun.
Across the Channel in Antwerp, the S.S. Montrose has just set off on its two-week voyage to North America. Slipping in among the first-class passengers is a Mr. John Robinson, accompanied by his teenage son, Edmund. The pair may be hoping for a quiet, private voyage, but in the close confines of a luxury ocean liner, anonymity is rare. And with others aboard looking for romance, or violence, or escape from their past in Europe, it will take more than just luck for the Robinsons to survive the voyage unnoticed.
An accomplished, intricately plotted novel, Crippen brilliantly reimagines the amazing escape attempt of one of history's most notorious killers and marks the outstanding American debut of one of Ireland's best young novelists. John Boyne was born in Dublin, Ireland. He studied English literature at Trinity College, Dublin, and was a student in creative writing at the University of East Anglia, where he was awarded the Curtis Brown Prize. He began publishing short stories in his early twenties and was shortlisted for a Hennessy Literary Award. He is also the author of the children's novel The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, which has been shortlisted for the Ottakar's Children's Book Prize. He has taught creative writing at the Irish Writer's Centre and at the University of East Anglia, where he was awarded the Writing Fellowship for 2005; in the same year, Ireland's Sunday Business Post named him one of the forty people under forty in Ireland "likely to be the movers and shakers who will define the country's culture, politics, style and economics in 2005 and beyond." Crippen was nominated for the Sunday Independent Hughes & Hughes Irish Novel of the Year Award. Boyne's work has been translated into fourteen languages. He lives with his partner in Dublin. July 1910: A gruesome discovery has been made at 39 Hilldrop Crescent, Camden.
Chief Inspector Walter Dew of Scotland Yard did not expect the house to be empty. Nor did he expect to find a body in the cellar. Buried under the flagstones are the remains of Cora Crippen, former music-hall singer and wife of Dr. Hawley Crippen. No one would have thought the quiet, unassuming Dr. Crippen capable of murder, yet the doctor and his mistress have disappeared from London, and now a full-scale hunt for them has begun.
Across the Channel in Antwerp, the S.S. Montrose has just set off on its two-week voyage to North America. Slipping in among the first-class passengers is a Mr. John Robinson, accompanied by his teenage son, Edmund. The pair may be hoping for a quiet, private voyage, but in the close confines of a luxury ocean liner, anonymity is rare. And with others aboard looking for romance, or violence, or escape from their past in Europe, it will take more than just luck for the Robinsons to survive the voyage unnoticed.
An accomplished, intricately plotted novel, Crippen brilliantly reimagines the amazing escape attempt of one of history's most notorious killers and marks the outstanding American debut of one of Ireland's best young novelists.
Review
"Boyne's light tone diffuses any seriousness and his late and highly improbable twist to the murder scenario transforms the story...into something resembling farce. Unconvincing." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Boyne does an excellent job of condensing and elaborating....His characters are wonderfully memorable and engaging, and this book will satisfy patrons with a thirst for dramatized true-crime stories. Highly recommended." Library Journal (Starred Review)
Review
"A dark comedy that is supremely readable, always suspenseful, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny....Boyne provides plenty of thrills, chills, ironies and surprises....Satire is fine, but eventually all these loathsome creatures cease to amuse." The Washington Post Book World
Synopsis
Re-creates an infamous serial killer case involving the 1910 Scotland Yard investigation into the murder of Bella Elmore, whose body is discovered in the cellar of her husband and killer Hawley Crippen, a doctor who has fled in disguise along with his mistress on a cruise ship bound for America. Reader's Guide included. Reprint. 30,000 first printing.
Synopsis
An accomplished, intricately plotted novel, John Boyne's Crippen brilliantly reimagines the amazing escape attempt of one of history's most notorious killers and marks the outstanding American debut of one of Ireland's best young novelists.
July 1910: A gruesome discovery has been made at 39 Hilldrop Crescent, Camden.
Chief Inspector Walter Dew of Scotland Yard did not expect the house to be empty. Nor did he expect to find a body in the cellar. Buried under the flagstones are the remains of Cora Crippen, former music-hall singer and wife of Dr. Hawley Crippen. No one would have thought the quiet, unassuming Dr. Crippen capable of murder, yet the doctor and his mistress have disappeared from London, and now a full-scale hunt for them has begun.
Across the Channel in Antwerp, the S.S. Montrose has just set off on its two-week voyage to North America. Slipping in among the first-class passengers is a Mr. John Robinson, accompanied by his teenage son, Edmund. The pair may be hoping for a quiet, private voyage, but in the close confines of a luxury ocean liner, anonymity is rare. And with others aboard looking for romance, or violence, or escape from their past in Europe, it will take more than just luck for the Robinsons to survive the voyage unnoticed.
Synopsis
This beautifully drawn novel re-creates the amazing escape attempt of one of history's most notorious killers.
Synopsis
July 1910: A gruesome discovery has been made at 39 Hilldrop Crescent, Camden.
Chief Inspector Walter Dew of Scotland Yard did not expect the house to be empty. Nor did he expect to find a body in the cellar. Buried under the flagstones are the remains of Cora Crippen, former music-hall singer and wife of Dr. Hawley Crippen. No one would have thought the quiet, unassuming Dr. Crippen capable of murder, yet the doctor and his mistress have disappeared from London, and now a full-scale hunt for them has begun.
Across the Channel in Antwerp, the S.S. Montrose has just set off on its two-week voyage to North America. Slipping in among the first-class passengers is a Mr. John Robinson, accompanied by his teenage son, Edmund. The pair may be hoping for a quiet, private voyage, but in the close confines of a luxury ocean liner, anonymity is rare. And with others aboard looking for romance, or violence, or escape from their past in Europe, it will take more than just luck for the Robinsons to survive the voyage unnoticed.
An accomplished, intricately plotted novel, Crippen brilliantly reimagines the amazing escape attempt of one of history's most notorious killers and marks the outstanding American debut of one of Ireland's best young novelists.
Synopsis
July 1910: A gruesome discovery has been made at 39 Hilldrop Crescent, Camden.
Chief Inspector Walter Dew of Scotland Yard did not expect the house to be empty. Nor did he expect to find a body in the cellar. Buried under the flagstones are the remains of Cora Crippen, former music-hall singer and wife of Dr. Hawley Crippen. No one would have thought the quiet, unassuming Dr. Crippen capable of murder, yet the doctor and his mistress have disappeared from London, and now a full-scale hunt for them has begun.
Across the Channel in Antwerp, the S.S. Montrose has just set off on its two-week voyage to North America. Slipping in among the first-class passengers is a Mr. John Robinson, accompanied by his teenage son, Edmund. The pair may be hoping for a quiet, private voyage, but in the close confines of a luxury ocean liner, anonymity is rare. And with others aboard looking for romance, or violence, or escape from their past in Europe, it will take more than just luck for the Robinsons to survive the voyage unnoticed.
An accomplished, intricately plotted novel, Crippen brilliantly reimagines the amazing escape attempt of one of history's most notorious killers and marks the outstanding American debut of one of Ireland's best young novelists.
About the Author
John Boyne was born in Dublin, Ireland. He studied English literature at Trinity College, Dublin, and was a student in creative writing at the University of East Anglia, where he was awarded the Curtis Brown Prize. He began publishing short stories in his early twenties and was shortlisted for a Hennessy Literary Award. He is also the author of the children's novel The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, which has been shortlisted for the Ottakar's Children's Book Prize. He has taught creative writing at the Irish Writer's Centre and at the University of East Anglia, where he was awarded the Writing Fellowship for 2005; in the same year, Ireland's Sunday Business Post named him one of the forty people under forty in Ireland "likely to be the movers and shakers who will define the country's culture, politics, style and economics in 2005 and beyond." Crippen was nominated for the Sunday Independent Hughes & Hughes Irish Novel of the Year Award. Boyne's work has been translated into fourteen languages. He lives with his partner in Dublin.
Reading Group Guide
Reading Group Questions
1. In most novels, the outcome is unknown. Even though you know from the jacket description that a murder takes place, were you still able to anticipate, and enjoy, the unfolding of events? Discuss the narrative structure of the book, as well as its elements of suspense.
2. How did the early chapters about Crippens coming-of-age affect your opinion of the would-be murderer? Did it make you sympathetic toward him? Or how, if at all, might it have compromised your objectivity toward the other characters in the book?
3. Discuss the significance of young Crippens Scientific American magazine collection hidden beneath his mattress—and subsequently stolen by his mother. How influential was this episode to his development? Also, take a moment to talk about the Crippen familys beliefs about religion and science, and nature vs. nurture.
4. What are the themes of mortality and morality that resonate throughout Crippens life? And in this novel?
5. Do you think there were similarities between Jezebel and Cora Crippen? Talk about the women in Crippens life, from the outspoken Charlotte to his one true love, Ethel. What common traits did these characters possess? How were they different? And how, if at all, were they stronger than their male counterpart?
6. Crippen is set primarily in Great Britain and on the open seas. In what ways did life on the ship mirror early twentieth-century English society? Discuss the microcosm of the SS Montrose.
7. As for the characters aboard the Montrose: Was Crippens “Mr. Robinson” a believable creation, in your opinion? What about Edmund? In one scene, while looking at himself in the mirror, Edmund acknowledges that people “often believed what was presented to them and rarely challenged it, which was how [his] deception had worked so convincingly thus far.” Did the author convince you that the character of Edmund was “real”? Or did you see through the ruse right away?
8. How did you feel, after reading the Authors Note, once you realized that the events of the night on which Cora “met her bloody end” were “entirely a supposition” on John Boynes part? Take a moment to talk about the nature of fact vs. fiction in Crippen.
9. A show of hands: Who, in the group, thinks that justice was served for Crippen? Who thinks that the case should have been considered a mistrial?
10. The circumstances of Crippens capture relied on a “cutting-edge” technological device: the Marconi telegraph. Indeed, the case was the first in which a murder suspect was traced by means of wireless communication. Take a moment to discuss some of our more modern crime-solving techniques—as seen and popularized by such television programs as Law & Order and CSI—and ask yourselves: How far have we come? Has higher technology made the world a safer, or more dangerous, place? As a side note, talk about the ways in which crime is portrayed in the media, either as news or entertainment. Why are we so drawn to novels of murder in the first place?