This might be one of the most incredible true-crime books I’ve ever read - and I’ve read plenty. If you wrote this case as fiction, it would be derided as too ridiculous to be believed. However, it all really happened in the late 1870s, and reading it is an absolutely fascinating insight into both the lives of everyday Londoners and the methods of police investigations at the time.

(I also found out about the Illustrated Police News, which was basically the first printed sensationalist tabloid and boasted headlines The Onion and The National Enquirer would both be proud of, but I digress).

The author’s research is incredibly well done, and he weaves direct quotes from court transcripts, police interviews, newspaper articles and other sources seamlessly into his narration of the story, while using beautifully descriptive language to paint a picture of London in the latter part of the 19th century, with uncontrolled immigration bringing skilled migrants from across Europe to ply their trades serving the rising middle class. At the time, there were rising numbers of domestic servants in London households too, and an awkward dynamic between servants and masters who were really not far apart at all on the social scale.

These dynamics and relationships are superbly explored in the book, as they are essential to understanding what may have happened in the case which transfixed a nation. Some of the things which happened are frankly incredible to modern sensibilities, such as the partly decayed body of the victim being displayed to the public in an attempt to get an identification. Queues for viewing stretched around the block. When I mentioned this to a friend who has an interest in Victorian literature, she laughed and said “Yeah, Victorians were hardcore!”

Quite apart from a fascinating look at a never-solved murder, this is a wonderful resource for any writer interested in writing Victorian fiction. Sinclair McKay’s writing will plant you deep in the 1870s and 1880s, alongside tradesmen rising to the middle class, servants who were choosing their own positions and demanding better working conditions, a London which was thriving and growing at a rate faster than many could even comprehend.

This might be the best true crime book I’ve ever read. It’s certainly the best I’ve read this year. If you have the slightest interest in Victorian era crime and police work, you will definitely want to read it. Wish I could give it more than five stars.

McKay wrote a descriptive narrative that mixes true crime and Victorian social norms with the emergence of a middle class that kept me entertained. A decomposed body is found in the basement of a boarding house. The owner and his family are soon questioned as well as a former maid. McKay goes on to explain how an investigation, trial and prison sentences were carried out in England during the 19th century. This was a different sort of true crime novel and I really enjoyed it.

The Lady in the Cellar – Sinclair McKay

So the darker nights have encouraged another foray into Victorian true crime with this, the second book I have read by Sinclair McKay this year.

The Lady in the Cellar refers to a Miss Matilda Hacker who was found amongst the coal in a cellar in a boarding house in Euston Square in London, she’d been dead for quite some time by the time her body was found in 1879 and at first the police were at a loss even as to her identity. You see her final resting place in a boarding house in a fast expanding London lends itself to a more anonymous lifestyle, one where the occupants lived alongside strangers in rooms of varying sizes and facilities.

Matilda Hacker was an eccentric, she’d moved to London from her native Canterbury on her sister’s death – these two spinsters were a familiar site when they took their daily promenade in their lavish silk dresses, dresses which were far too youthful for the ‘elderly’ women who wore them. After her sister’s death she moved away pursued for rates and other bills she could easily afford to pay and took up residence in boarding houses in the capital. The rise of this ‘new’ way of living is expertly explained within the book.
When she came to Mr & Mrs Bastendorff’s bording house it was to be given a furnished room, the use of the water closet and a cupboard to store food and other perishables. She could buy her own food for the servant, Hannah Dobbs, to cook or she could give Hannah to fetch the items herself both means were used to be fed, watered and generally kept an eye on. As Matilda Hacker was in her late sixties by this time, it doesn’t seem to bad a way of life.

We are also treated to the background of the Bastendorffs, the move of Severin from his native Luxembourg to London alongside his sister and a troupe of brothers is also a fascinating insight into how foreigners assimilated into life at this point in history. Severin was a furniture maker who had set up his own business by the time a body was found in the basement of his house. His wife was English and the pair had four small children. This was the rise of the middle classes, the house, the servant and regular income from the business in the back yard as well as the money they made by renting out rooms within their stylish house.

As you can tell there is plenty of contemporary details to be gleaned and Sinclair presents his story well long before we get to the trial, which lets face it is where the fun begins. The police decided that the perpetrator was Hannah Dobbs, yes the servant! That must have caused more than a little disquiet amongst the middle-classes, no-one wants a murderer living in their home. There were links to pawn-brokers amongst other clues as to what happened to Matilda’s belongings, but the trial was only the beginning.

This was a meaty story with the tendrils once again illustrating that the Victorians were not quite how they have been painted in more recent history. For those of us who were taught they were all prudes, this seems far from the racy story that Hannah sold to the papers! If you want to know more, you should read The Lady in the Cellar.

I'd like to thank the publishers White Lion Publishing for allowing me to be immersed into this story that ends sadly for more than one of those who, perhaps completely innocently, got caught up in a murder that captured the nation's attention. This unbiased review is my thanks to them, and to Sinclair McKay for his diligent research which was relayed to this reader in such a well-structured manner that it became a compulsive read.

Sinclair brings to life a true Victorian crime and the bizarre events that followed. The writing is wonderful and he brings the characters to life. I felt like I was transported right into the novel.

The Lady in the Celler covers the intriguing murder of a boarding house in England.
Setting up for the day, as usual, one of the servant boys begins shoveling coal. But this day was not like any other: he found a foot! This leads him to find a body that had been in the cellar for some time. The state of the body makes it hard to identify who it is and how she was murdered. The investigation brings out maids who steal, eccentric ladies who skip out on rent and philandering husbands without a clear explanation of what happened.
The biggest issue with this book is the writing style. It is not written like most true crime novels building suspense. The content is heavily researched and reads like a history book adding background information on a variety of subjects that just aren't vital to understanding the crime.
The best sections are the ones about the pamphlet the suspect wrote. This was a long story that included a variety of murders and se3xual encounters. While the majority of this material is not taken seriously, reading the portion was interesting as it gave a peek into the suspect's mind. I would have loved to read the pamphlet in its entirety.
The Lady in the Cellar is an interesting case but the writing style was less exciting.

A true crime book that takes you to the late 19th century home in London where a body is discovered in the cellar, but whodunnit?

You get introduced to all of the people who lived there, and get glimpses into their lives, scandals and all. You meet the victim, the suspects, and get taken to the courtrooms to hear the testimony through first hand accounts that are used throughout this book. This gives a sense of immediacy, and a taste for how things really were, including prisons, and lunatic asylums.

I read a lot of murder mystery books, as my shelves on GoodReads will show you, and this was an entertaining read as it kept you guessing as to who the murderer actually was, and what the motive was.

The Lady In The Cellar by Sinclair McKay is out now in hardback.

I was given this book for free in return for an unbiased review, so my thanks to NetGalley and White Lion Publishing (the publishers) for this book.

Check out my GoodReads profile for more reviews.

This is a fascinating true story which has been extremely well-researched and has a long list of interesting references some of which I plan to dip into. The author's obvious enthusiasm for his subject is very infectious, the book is easy to read, and I thought it was a very good read indeed. The only downside for me is the author's occasional tendency to "refer forward", referencing something that the reader doesn't yet know from the narrative. This left me feeling a bit cheated, in that I didn't then have the opportunity to speculate and find whether or not I'd been on the right track.

"The Lady in the Cellar" will appeal to those who are interested in Victorian era fiction as well as non-fiction, and to fans of murder mysteries in general, particularly those who enjoyed "The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, Or The Murder at Road Hill House" by Kate Summerscale.

With thanks to the publisher and to Netgalley for giving me a copy of the book in exchange for this honest review.

In general, true crimes don’t interest me. Give me a fictional and a quirky fictional detective who will definitely solve the case and I’m usually happy. However, this year I’ve been trying to broaden my reading habits to include more non-fiction and classics. The Lady in the Cellar is a fascinating book examining the murder of Matilda Hacker in the 1870s and the events surrounding the body’s discovery and the trials that resulted.

In a lot of ways, The Lady in the Cellar is similar to the fictional detective stories I enjoy. We have a quirky cast of characters, including the victim herself, who was a well-off woman but did not behave in the way single women of her age were supposed to in that era. We have a semi-famous detective, Inspector Charles Hagen, who had already been in the papers a few years earlier as the bodyguard of the Prince of Wales and was a rising star in the Criminal Investigation Department. We have several suspects, including the boarding house owner and a maid who he may or may not have been having an affair with, his brother who may also have been having an affair with the same maid, and the other boarders in the house.

McKay does an excellent job of leading us through the discovery of the body, the investigation and the trial. Courtroom dramas can get a little tedious sometimes, but the story here really is gripping. The people act as outrageously as they do in fiction, telling lies, ignoring things that are right under their noses. The body was in the cellar for two years, bones were found, but the people living in the house would have us believe they didn’t have any suspicions. There’s a murder trial and the suspect is acquitted. She then goes on to allow a published to produce a tell-all pamphlet that alleges even worse incidents occurring in the house. Then we have a couple of trials for libel. The mystery keeps the public, and the reader, enthralled.

I found it interesting that the public was so engrossed in reading about the case. “One of the effects of the 1870 Education Act was a dazzling fast rise in rates of literacy; but this improvement had, in turn, been fuelled by the increasingly salty and sensational nature of popular newspapers, periodicals and newspapers. Reading as a mass pursuit had become a terrific source of escapist entertainment . . . And there was no question that for readers around the country, lurid real-life stories of murder were particularly satisfying.”

The descriptions and period details bring the era to life. The people, places are events are real, no matter how unbelievable that may seem. McKay also does a good job of letting us see how today is not that different from then: the alienation people can feel in cities, the obsession with real life crimes (just look at tabloid headlines), the stigma of mental health issues, how class can effect the way the justice system treats an individual.

The case is not solved. McKay gives us a rather strong possibility, but that’s all it is – a possibility. The Lady in the Cellar is well-researched and easy to read. It’s full of facts and details, but it flows well and kept me interested.

Number 4, Euston Square was a home like many in Victorian London. A boarding house, it was respectable, well-kept, and hospitable to those staying there. Yet beneath that veneer there seemed to be a darkness lurking.

In early May 1879, the corpse of a woman is discovered in the coal cellar. An investigation discovers she is an elderly woman named Matilda Hacker, a former resident of the boarding house. Questions are immediately raised. How did she die? How did she come to be buried in the coal cellar? And most importantly, who could have killed her?

In the investigation that followed, every resident of the home was scrutinized and more than a few secrets were brought to light. Someone in that house had killed Matilda Hacker and someone knew the truth.

I would like to thank NetGalley and the publishers for a copy of this ebook in exchange for a review.

The Lady in the Cellar is a true story. In the early summer of 1879, a body was discovered in the coal cellar of a boarding house. Almost every person who was there was a potential suspect. It was a story the newspapers grabbed on to, especially once more and more details started to come to light. And in a time when the so called 'middle class' were coming in to their own and the lines between classes were sometimes blurred, there were an abundance of details to titillate and delight.

The case of the murder of Matilda Hacker is a bizarre one. And it is one that the author covers in great detail. At times it feels like McKay is trying to reach a page count with their writing as there are long passages going in to details that nothing to do with the case itself. While it can be interesting to read about some of history about the family that owned the boarding house, with no actual relevancy, it leaves one to wonder why it was included.

Some of the other reviews I have seen where the reader did not finish the book lament the fact that McKay's writing can be a bit tedious at times. It is an opinion I must agree with. Attention to detail is one thing, but to inundate a reader with information can be a it much. The actual trial and its aftermath take up roughly half of the book. And it is this half of the book that is the most interesting. It is slogging through the first half of the book and getting to the 'good bits' however, that can be difficult.

It is very obvious that McKay did a great amount of research in writing The Lady in the Cellar. The book is chock full of information and little details to draw the reader in. And while the actual case of the murder of Ms. Hacker was never solved, McKay gives a plausible 'what if?' scenario towards the end.

While I am sure there are those readers who dislike true crime books for one reason or another, I urge my readers to give this one a try when it hits shelves. In a day and age of sensational media such as ours, it is little wonder that the case of the lady in the cellar was so fascinating to the reading public of the day. It is my hope that modern day readers will enjoy it as well.

The Boarding House..."introduced a measure of enforced proximity with strangers...in the nature of such houses unexpected intimacy could be sparked; occasionally with the darkest consequences...". Many boarding houses were furnished with heavy curtains and carpets giving the illusion of safety, protection from the cold, and from chaotic street noise. Severin Bastendorff and wife Mary leased a boarding house at 4,Euston Square, Bloomsbury. The household seemed elegant and respectable. Severin and his ten employees made well received and greatly valued bamboo furniture in a detached workshop behind the lodging.

4, Euston Square was a house with secrets soon to be unearthed. There had been a shortage of paying guests. When businessman Mr. Brooks planned to move into their most expensive apartment, Mary and maid-servant Hannah Dobbs readied the rooms. Room rental costs did not include coal for the resident's fire. A section of the coal cellar needed to be emptied to accommodate Mr. Brooks's coal supplies. In rearranging the coal cellar, a large bone from the decomposed, soon to be identified, body of 60ish lodger Matilda Hacker was found. Remnants of an elegant black silk dress and a decorative brooch were found near the body.

Eccentric spinster Matilda Hacker always dressed in extravagant, outlandish clothing befitting a young miss. Despite being a rich property owner, she refused to pay dues and taxes. Trying to constantly elude authorities, she switched lodgings frequently registering under a variety of pseudonyms. Matilda Hacker, registered at Euston Square as Miss Uish, disappeared on May 8, 1879. Arguably, Matilda's body had been buried under coal in the cellar for two years. It was up to Inspector Charles Hagan to try to unmask the murderer.

Who did it? Was it the maid-servant, Hannah Dobbs? Why did she pawn Matilda's gold watch? Why was Mary Bastendorff unfamiliar with her boarder Matilda? Did Severin Bastendorff have a "special connection" to Hannah Dobbs? Why was the description of a prisoner's beard significant?

"The Lady in the Cellar: Murder, Scandal and Insanity in Victorian Bloomsbury" by Sinclair McKay is an unsolved true crime read. Author McKay's presentation of the facts, suppositions and theories make for a fascinating read. Highly recommended.

Thank you Quatro Publishing Group-White Lion Publishing and Net Galley for the opportunity to read and review "The Lady in the Cellar".

This is a book for true crime/murder mystery lovers. It's also set in Victorian times, so if you love a crime story set in those times, you might like it.

We're in a boarding house, and a body is discovered in the coal cellar. The mystery is who was this person, who killed her why, and why was it there?

Although it was a pleasant reading experience, there were some problems as well if I need to be honest. It was hard to get into the book. But, once I was used to the style, it became much better. You're given all the clues and historical facts about the mystery. I like resolving mysteries, so this was the fun part for me :)

The end just didn't work for me. It was an unsolved case, so obviously all is left is hypothetical theories of people.

But, all in all, it's a solid true crime book, well written. So, if it's something you like, you should check it out.

Thanks a lot to publisher and Netgalley for providing a copy in exchange for an honest review.

This is a terrific account of a fascinating murder case. In 1879, the desiccated body of a woman was found in the coal cellar of a middle-class London boarding house. The landlady was oddly oblivious to the goings-on in her home; the landlord may or may not have been sleeping with the maid; and the maid was definitely sleeping with his brother and likely murdered a boarder for her money and valuables. But the maid was acquitted and wrote a scandalous and bizarre pamphlet about the murders, adding in that the landlord and his brothers had also killed a child and fed it to a dog, among other depravities. A libel suit ensued. The landlord went mad. His wife remained oblivious. The maid moved in with the brother. The entire complicated story is beautifully laid out and told by McKay, who provides just the right amount of detail about society and surroundings to make the reader feel present in the mayhem. True crime readers, people interested in the Victorian age, and those fascinated by changing society, class, and gender roles will enjoy this.

I’d never heard of this murder in Euston Square in London so this was a fascinating read. Imagine a body found in a cellar which has been there for two years at least? How, even in London with its slums and growing chaotic population does someone go missing without being reported? When it’s a respectable woman in a respectable boarding house, the mystery grows

The boarding house was a fascinating mix of immigrants of German and Luxembourg descent. There’s a quirky bunch living there and no one seems to have any idea of the body or who it might have been. The police are called and the trial of the century begins..

Apart from being areal life crime story, this is a fascinating look at London itself. The locations sadly are no longer there and I think there should be an old fashioned map in the book as real ones don’t show many of the actual locations! The house is now in the area of Euston Station for example.

I also enjoyed the way the main story was enhanced with stories of other scandals and historic events of the time. This is a trial narrative so could have been a bit staid, but it was an fascinating look into London Victorian society at the time.
And that poor woman in the cellar. Is the mystery finally solved? I’ll leave that up to you. For me it remains an historically complex mystery on many levels.

historical-places-events, historical-research, crime, women, social-history, London, England *****

This is a revisiting of a complex murder case discovered in 1879. The victim was found eighteen months after her death in the coal cellar of a rooming house in a respectable area of London,England. With due diligence the identity of the murdered woman was discovered, a process made unusually difficult because she preferred to dress and behave as an ingenue regardless of present age, took up residence under an interesting variety of names and had the finances to support this lifestyle. The family owning the house was put through intense scrutiny, potential murderers were put forth, and the new CID and its detectives were trampled by the press.
There is much related about the era, the plight of skilled immigrants, and the great divide between classes. It quickly becomes evident that a whole lot of research has been done and turned into a book that is infinitely more readable than a thesis on historical criminality.
I requested and received a free ebook copy from Quarto Publishing Group-White Lion Publishing via NetGalley.

True story of a woman found in the coal cellar of a boarding house on Euston Square in London. The investigation starts with trying to find out who she was. Had she lived or worked there at one time or had her body been buried there after being killed some place else? Several businesses had operated in the backyard of the house. Maybe it was someone who worked there. Who killed Matilda? I found the way it was investigated fascinatIng. No DNA experts, just great police work. This story felt more like a novel than true crime and I really liked it. It is well written and researched. I would read more from this author. I found it interesting enough to look up this case on line. I received this book from Net Galley and Quarto Publishing for a honest review and no compensation otherwise. The opinions are my own.

Took three attempts to get into this book. I will say, true crime, is not really my genre, so that’s one issue. Also, there is just such...thick narrative which I found hard to,dive into. Others may find that enjoyable. I think this comes to a matter of preference vs actual poor writing.

This is my favourite genre, and the genre I wrote the book about Dr Edward William Pritchard The Poisoning Adulterer.. I could not put this book down and I was hooked from the first page. This book is well written and dramatic and offers a fascinating account of a Victorian true crime.

Recommended!

I do love a good murder mystery and this is definitely a good murder mystery!
A real life Victorian tale of crime – when the body of a woman is discovered in the cellar of a well respected boarding house at 4 Euston Terrace, London.

The body has been there for some time as it is in a state of advanced decomposition – the key interest for me was that in a time before scientific advances in forensic science – how did they establish who the person was, their age etc – where they had come from, what had happened them and how they had finished up in the cellar of this particular house!

The Lady in the Cellar read very much like a novel – drawing the reader in with anticipation and curiosity – I enjoyed this book so much, the author brought these characters to life – putting flesh on the bones of long dead bodies!

This part of my review contains spoilers...


The only negative being that it was an unsolved crime and the last 10% of the book went through different scenarios that weren’t really necessary – I preferred the open ending and for the reader to make up their own minds or to just accept it won’t ever be solved.

That being said – I totally recommend this book – I hadn’t heard of the crime before and I loved the book so much that it sent me researching on the internet for any information I could find!
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers White Lion Publishing for providing me with a digital advance reader copy for my honest and unbiased review

I found this very enjoyable.

I thought it was very well researched and had excellent detail from period sources and transcripts. A real insight into social/domestic lives, immigration, criminal proceedings and mental health in 19th century London.

A fascinating account of a historical murder mystery.

This is an intriguing real life murder mystery and it had me gripped. It definitely pulled me in from the start and was hard to put down. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley.