Murder at Wrotham Hill

Murder at Wrotham Hill takes the killing in October 1946 of Dagmar Petrzywalski as the catalyst for a compelling and unique meditation on murder and fate.

Dagmar, a gentle, eccentric spinster, was the embodiment of Austerity Britain's prudence and thrift. Her murderer Harold Hagger's litany of petty crimes, abandoned wives, sloughed-off identities and desertion was its opposite.

Featuring England's first celebrity policeman, Fabian of the Yard, the celebrated forensic scientist, Keith Simpson, and history's most famous and dedicated hangman, Albert Pierrepoint, this is a gripping and deeply moving book.

Short-listed for CWA Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction 2013

“'Souhami's dissection of the murder is completely engrossing in its insistence that fatality is about fallible human beings' The Times .”

'A brilliantly formulated and well-written account of a tawdry murder that shines a bright light on postwar austerity England' Jenny Diski, London Review of Books. London Review of Books
'Souhami's hypnotic narrative grips throughout' Daily Telegraph. Daily Telegraph
'Superbly captures the shattered mood in this era, and shows us ordinary men and women grappling with new definitions of good and evil ... Murder At Wrotham Hill is more than a pacy whodunit ... It reads, above all, like an unsettling dream' Kathryn Hughes, Mail on Sunday. Mail on Sunday
'Evokes these drab, joyless [postwar] years with painful brilliance, so that one can almost feel the shabby poverty and smell the foggy, coal-dust-filled air' Juliet Gardiner, Spectator. Spectator
'Souhami's dissection of the murder is completely engrossing in its insistence that fatality is about fallible human beings' The Times. The Times

Diana Souhami is the author of many widely acclaimed books, and she has also written plays for radio and television. She won the Whitbread Biography Award for Selkirk's Island, her biography of Alexander Selkirk, or as he is better known, Robinson Crusoe.

Murder at Wrotham Hill takes the killing in October 1946 of Dagmar Petrzywalski as the catalyst for a compelling and unique meditation on murder and fate. Dagmar, a gentle, eccentric spinster, was the embodiment of Austerity Britain's prudence and thrift. Her murderer Harold Hagger's litany of petty crimes, abandoned wives, sloughed-off identities and desertion was its opposite. Featuring England's first celebrity policeman, Fabian of the Yard, the celebrated forensic scientist, Keith Simpson, and history's most famous and dedicated hangman, Albert Pierrepoint, this is a gripping and deeply moving book.

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