On 2 August 1876, a young policeman named Constable Nicholas Cock was shot dead while walking 'the beat' at Whalley Range, Manchester. A few months later, on the evening of 29 November 1876, Arthur Dyson, an engineer, was murdered in his own backyard at Banner Cross, Sheffield. Charles Peace was Victorian Britain's most infamous cat burglar and murderer. He was a complex character: ruthless, devious, dangerous, charming, intelligent and creative. Mrs Katherine Dyson identified him as the murderer of her husband, and as the police searched the country for him, Peace was living a life of luxury under another identity in London. One of these murders became the most notorious and scandalous case of the Victorian age, with a tale of illicit romance and a nationwide hunt for Britain's most wanted man; the other was to become a landmark in British legal history. Although no one suspected a link between them, these two sensational murder cases would, in the end, turn out to be tied together in a way that shocked Victorian society to its core.

Doctor Nikola’s goal in life is to achieve world domination and immortality. When he finds out that a secret society in Tibet is way more powerful than any other human being or government on the planet, he decides to set off on a long adventure. This society can teach Nikola how to extend life and raise the dead. But are they willing to share their knowledge? Can Doctor Nikola somehow force them to do so? Find out in "Dr Nikola Returns". Guy Boothby was an Australian author who lived in the period 1867-1905. His earlier works described life in Australia, but he gained wide popularity with his later fiction, which offered a vivid combination of crime, science fiction and horror stories. Boothby is well known for his Doctor Nikola series, a collection of novels telling the story of an occultist who seeks immortality and world domination. Other popular stories by him are "A Prince of Swindlers", which tells the story of a thief, and "Uncle Joe's Legacy and Other Stories", which is a collection of ghost stories. All in all, Guy Boothby left the world a colourful and rich literary legacy.

The true crimes of one of nineteenth century England’s most notorious thieves and killers, whose exploits still capture the public’s imagination. Once immortalized in Madame Tussauds’s Chamber of Horrors, and brought to life in two silent films, his gnarled and prematurely aged features would be the last image his victims ever saw, yet ironically, he was known by the name of Peace. A grotesque figure who took on many names and many faces, he could slip into the home of an unsuspecting family with the silent stealth of a cool night time breeze, and leave without a trace. Spending his nocturnal hours limping through the dirty streets with villainy on his mind, and impishly disappearing into the industrial smoke that hung over Victorian Sheffield like a perpetual storm cloud, this devil wrote his own place in the folklore of his hometown. Committing one gruesome crime after the next, he was the most wanted man in England for a time. Tales of burglary, murder, daring escapes, and a truly shocking miscarriage of justice feature in Charlie Peace along with moments of lost love, damaged pride, and violent revenge. Ben W. Johnson’s biography tells the chilling story of a man who turned to crime through necessity, but consciously chose to continue in an ever spiraling life of wickedness.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Prisoners in the Castle, a dramatic portrait of the master thief of the nineteenth century: Adam Worth “Fascinating . . . a brisk, lively, colorful biography of an amazing criminal.”—The New York Times (Best Books of the Year) The Victorian era’s most infamous and iconic thief, the inspiration for Sherlock Holmes’s Professor Moriarty, Adam Worth was known as the Napoleon of crime. Suave, cunning, and fearless, Worth learned early that the best way to succeed was to steal. And steal he did. Following a strict code of honor, Worth won the respect of Victorian society. He also aroused its fear by becoming a chilling phantom, mingling undetected with the upper classes, whose valuables he brazenly stole. His most celebrated heist: Gainsborough’s grand portrait of the Duchess of Devonshire—ancestor of Diana, Princess of Wales—a painting Worth adored and often slept with for twenty years. With a brilliant gang that included “Piano” Charley, a jewel thief, train robber, and playboy, and “the Scratch” Becker, master forger, Worth secretly ran operations from New York to London, Paris, and South Africa—until betrayal and a Pinkerton man finally brought him down. The Napoleon of Crime is a grand, dazzling tour into the gaslit underworld of the nineteenth century, and into the doomed genius of a criminal mastermind.

The chilling true-crime story of the Victorian era’s deadliest doctor “When a doctor does go wrong, he is the first of criminals,” Sherlock Holmes observed during one of his most puzzling murder investigations. Incredibly, at the time the words of the world’s most famous fictional detective appeared in print in the Strand Magazine, a real-life Canadian doctor was stalking and murdering women in London’s downtrodden Lambeth neighbourhood. Dr. Thomas Neill Cream had been a suspect in the deaths of two women in Canada, and had killed as many as four people in Chicago before he arrived in London in 1891 and began using pills laced with strychnine to kill prostitutes. The Lambeth Poisoner, as he was dubbed in the press, became one of the most prolific serial killers in history. In this fascinating book, Dean Jobb reveals how bungled investigations, corrupt officials and failed prosecutions allowed Cream to evade detection or freed him to kill, again and again. The first complete account of Dr. Cream’s crimes and his many victims explores how the stifling morality and hypocrisy of the Victorian era allowed this monster to poison vulnerable and desperate women, many of whom had turned to him for medical help. It offers an inside account of Scotland Yard’s desperate search for a killer as brazen and efficient as Jack the Ripper.

Early on the morning of May 6, 1840, the elderly Lord William Russell was found in his London house with his throat so deeply cut that his head was nearly severed. The crime soon had everyone, including Queen Victoria, feverishly speculating about motives and methods. But when the prime suspect claimed to have been inspired by a sensational crime novel, it sent shock waves through literary London and drew both Dickens and Thackeray into the fray. Could a novel really lead someone to kill? In Murder by the Book, Claire Harman blends a riveting true-crime whodunit with a fascinating account of the rise of the popular novel and the early battle for its soul among the most famous writers of the day.

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