I read this for the most trivial of reasons - the murder had taken place opposite where the Grafton Theatre would later be built (where my father had worked as a young actor in the 1930s) and I'd lived round the corner as a student. So, I knew some geography, but the story of Victorian London's population of quarrelsome political refugees was new to me. Some of the politics left me confused, but that's more a criticism of me than of the book. The attempts to explain long words seemed misplaced and patronising. Most importantly, the main character, Emmanuel Barthelemy, will live with me for a long time. ( )

Perhaps too much background material which gets in the way of telling the story. In the end though we get an admirable view of who was this strange man, Emmanuel Barthelemy and why he committed this murder most foul. Well written and gathers pace after a tediously slow beginning. ( )

In the mid 19th century a murder was committed in Warren Street in London. The victim, a well-to-do manufacturer of fizzy drinks, and the murderer, a French anarchist. By the time he killed in London, Barthelmy had already been sentenced twice for killings in France and was at the centre of scandal amongst the ex-pat population in London. Barthelmy was a member of a revolutionary group who had been integral in the barricade fighting in Paris in 1848 and had been pardoned from his first sentence to the galleys as part of political reconciliation. After his second killing Barthelmy escaped from prison and crossed the channel to London. He fought an illegal duel in which his opposition was killed but escaped the gallows on a technicality. His motive for the Warren Street murder remains unsure, as does the identity of his companion that night, but this time luck had run out for him.
This is a really fascinating book which takes a little known crime and explores the rich seam of history behind it. The story of the Paris Revolutionaries of the late 1840s is not particularly well known – they feature in Les Miserables – however Barthelemy is a character that surpasses fiction. It is obvious that this was a clever and driven man but his actions are wild and almost unbelievable. Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction. ( )