In Story of a Murder, bestselling author of The Five and celebrated historian Hallie Rubenhold reexamines the events leading up to the infamous Crippen Murder from the perspectives of the three extraordinary women at the center of it all.

When Belle Elmore’s remains were discovered in the basement of London’s 39 Hilldrop Crescent in July of 1910, the larger-than-life Vaudevillian performer was launched into stardom she never achieved on the stage. Her death set into motion a sensational true crime investigation that ensnared Edwardian society long after Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen was tried and executed for the murder of his wife.

Story of a Murder provides an intricately plotted, intimate look into the lives of three multifaceted women living during a time of electric progress and stifling limitation: Crippen’s first wife Charlotte, who died under mysterious circumstances, his mistress, Ethel, who claimed ignorance of his crime even as she escaped with Crippen disguised as his son, and Belle, the woman whose life Crippen took.

This fresh take on a horrendous crime unearths old evidence to give a new perspective to the previously male-dominated narrative of the Crippen Murder, bringing to light the ambition, adventurousness, sexuality, and true-grit of three women who were so much more than the passive victims history has portrayed them as.