Part one. How to enjoy a murder. 1. A connoisseur in murder

2. The highway

3. The watchmen

4. The murder circuit

5. House of wax

6. True crime

7. Charles Dickens, crime writer

8. The ballad of Maria Marten

9. Stage fright

10. The Bermondsey Horror

Part two. Enter the detective. 11. Middle-class murders and medical gentlemen

12. The good wife

13. Detective fever

14. A new sensation

15. "It is worse than a crime, Violet ..."

16. Monsters and men

17. The adventure of the forensic scientist

18. Revelations of a lady detective

Part three. The golden age. 19. The women between the wars

20. The duchess of death

21. A life less ordinary

22. The great game

23. Snobbery with violence

24. The dangerous edge of things

Postscript: The decline of English murder.