"A gripping true crime tale that is an unflinching portrait of a postwar Britain riven with sexism and racism." -- FT , Best Books of 2024 "Summerscale captures all the horrible fascination of Christie's crimes, but also expertly situates them in their troubled post-war setting. The result is a gripping account of murder, misogyny and spectatorship that has implications well beyond the tragic orbit of the case itself. A haunting, thought-provoking, deeply unsettling book"-- Sarah Waters, author of Tipping the Velvet "Once more, Kate Summerscale shatters our preconceptions of a classic crime."-- Val McDermid, author of Past Lying "There are few authors whose work I look forward to as much as Kate Summerscale's, and The Peepshow does not disappoint. It is a forensic reappraisal of a grimy episode in postwar British history; at once shocking, impeccably researched, lucidly written and always utterly compelling"-- Graeme Macrae Burnet, author of His Bloody Project "Kate Summerscale's multi-layered page-turner The Peepshow , which inverts the classic true crime structure, is masterful. The mystery is not who committed a series of murders in 1950s London but whether there had been a gross miscarriage of justice, as told through one tabloid reporter's attempt to redeem himself by revealing it. It's also an unflinching examination of the true crime industry -- a look at the boundary between making visible the unseen and the exploitation of tragedy -- and no one, not even the reader, escapes complicity"-- Becky Cooper, author of We Keep the Dead Close " The Peepshow is a masterclass in true crime storytelling.

Stark and compulsive it tells a story both of murder and those who write about it in a way that is as relevant now as it was in the 1950's."-- Jennie Godfrey, author of the Sunday Times bestseller The List of Suspicious Things "I blame The Peepshow for too many late nights, when I simply couldn't put it down. Horrifying, intriguing and entertaining in equal measure"-- Becky Holmes, author of Keanu Reeves Is Not in Love with You "Quite apart from its superb pacing and prose, its deep social history, there is a brilliant strain of feminism"-- Laura Cumming, author of Thunderclap (via X/Twitter) "A crystalline, compelling account of a notorious crime you think you know well. Seamlessly blends the pleasures of a good novel with the enlightenment of masterly reportage. A gem."-- Dominic Nolan, author of Vine Street "Summerscale rebuilds the dark past with such captivating intelligence that she makes eyewitnesses of us all"-- Laurence Scott, author of Picnic Comma Lightening "This intelligent and implacable account of a notorious post-war horror proves that no established memory of the past is definitive. The Peepshow is ruthless for truth, for previously unregarded details that expose the true horrors of a conflicted landscape, internal and external. This re-visioning of a dark London nightmare has the rigour and complexity of the best novels" -- Iain Sinclair, author of Pariah Genius "Gripping as a thriller and supremely atmospheric, The Peepshow gazes inside the murder house of 10 Rillington Place and reveals, beyond that, the bombed-out post-war Britain that this sad, sordid, significant case both fascinated and reflected.

Superb story-telling from the queen of true crime "--Laura Thompson, author of Take Six Girls.