Insomnia

The story of a brave woman

I’ve been busy organising my son’s transition to secondary school, going to job interviews and presenting some new research with CRIME THROUGH TIME at the Institute of Criminology at Cambridge University. And, naturally, lots of writing.

Back in January, I worked extensively on Lady on Trial, the new BBC podcast from the team behind LadyKillers and LadySwindlers. The series kicked off this week with the awful marriage of Lady Caroline Norton. You can catch up here.

A few years ago, I met Alison Baxter on Twitter (as was) and struck up a friendship over an inquest in her family history. She has used that inquest as a major plot point in her new fiction book, released last week. I got a sneak peek and I loved it!

Enough news for now, let’s go back to the past. This week’s murder is a strange story in which…almost everyone died. Once more, we consider the limits of the asylum system in Quarndon in 1886.

If you can’t afford to subscribe, get in touch. If you don’t want to give Substack money, an abbreviated version of this story is available on my bluesky profile.