A brilliant piece of literary detective work

[A] scandalous Victorian mystery... Harman tells the story with clarity and vigour

Vivid and punchy

[Harman] is a storyteller, with a sense of pace and timing, relish for a good scene and a wry sense of humour

[A] riveting investigation into a transgression that scandalised the literati of Victorian London in 1840. An engrossing fireside festive treat

This beautifully produced and impressively researched historical account of a celebrated Victorian murder with a literary twist reads like a thriller. I devoured it in one sitting, and was at once enthralled and chilled. Highly recommended!

A fascinating portrait of Victorian London amid the rising popularity of the novel

A riveting investigation into a true and vicious murder that shocked Victorian London

A fascinating account.... As Harman skilfully reveals, the real story behind the famous murder is the complex one about the harmful influence of fiction on the mind of the reader.

The book's heft lies in its rich detail...characters and settings are so vivid that Murder By The Book will surely soon be snatched up by television producers seeking their next Victorian crime drama

Harman resists sensationalising the murder... Instead, she offers a long view of the circular relationship between crime and literature

There is enough ambiguity in the story of Russell's end to satisfy even the most ardent lovers of detective fiction, and Harman's enjoyment at piecing together the evidence is clear

Enthralling

Enthralling . . . A page-turner that can hold its own with any one of the many murder-minded podcasts out there

Its opening scene is the stuff that classic murder mysteries are made of . . . Ms. Harman is a tireless researcher and a droll stylist

Harman demonstrates a flair for distilling reams of research into a succinct, lively narrative. The book is an exemplar of how to write taut, issue-driven historical nonfiction. With an appreciation for pithy quotations, telling details and amusing gossip, she's quick to spot a fascinating aside . . . As riveting as this true-crime story is, what elevates Murder by the Book above sensationalism is its focus on how this case heightened concern over the malevolent influence of violent entertainment

An assiduously researched and superbly written book that ends with Harman examining unanswered questions, and reminding us that truth can be stranger than fiction

A fascinating, exhaustively researched exploration into how art can influence society and vice versa, Murder by the Book turns an unflinching eye to the ways in which biases born of economic inequality affect the way crimes are investigated and prosecuted. It's a true crime devotee's delight

Harman effectively uses a novelist's approach to recreate a now obscure 1840 English murder case that was a sensation at the time . . . By exploring concerns about the glorification of criminals in the fiction of the day and addressing some lingering mysteries, such as whether Courvoisier had an accomplice, Harman adds depth to a fascinating true crime narrative.

An endlessly fascinating, bookish tale of true crime in Victorian England . . . Lovers of Drood, Sherlock, Jack the Ripper, and their kin real and fictional will relish the gruesome details of this entertaining book.

the city was "the melting pot of Europe" ... the hinge between the old Roman empire, the refounded Rome of Byzantium and the second new Rome of Charlemagne, who plundered its monuments for his capital at Aachen. Herrin's book ... is a welcome addition to a golden era of scholarship devoted to late antiquity and the early Middle Ages in Europe

Judith Herrin's Ravenna aims to set the mosaics, the buildings they ennoble and the urban landscape they inhabit back within a meaningful historical context. It's a worthy project that surprisingly has not really been attempted before ... it takes a scholar of Herrin's brilliance to bring events to life within a meaningful evocation of a time and a place. That skill, and a wonderfully pellucid prose style, ensures that even readers frustrated by the archaic narrative will find a great deal to admire and indeed learn from.

An ambitious, rewarding and detailed history of the city of Ravenna, spanning the period from its designation as imperial capital in the early fifth century to its Carolingian spoliations in the ninth. ... This book is a comprehensive, detailed and glittering history of the city within its Mediterranean context. It will attract the casual reader while also carrying sophisticated new arguments that will appeal to specialists.

Judith Herrin tells its fascinating history and presents a parade of forceful and creative characters with great insight and a wonderfully light touch, in a book as beautifully produced as it is profoundly researched.

Reviews for Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire

Others in recent years have made worthy efforts to interest us in the Byzantine achievement, but none has made it live in quite the way that Herrin does ... Free from portentousness and pretentiousness, she doesn't insist on her subject's importance or relevance: the freshness and enthusiasm of her book is its real point. Not just an important work of scholarship but a delight to read, this study works a minor miracle in raising Byzantium, Lazarus-like, from its dusty grave.

She presents Byzantium as a vibrant, dynamic, cosmopolitan reality which somehow escaped the constraints of its official ideology

A collection of fascinating, well-researched and vividly told biographies of women who made tangible contributions to the lives we live now… Lewis’ book is challenging, punchily written and refreshing in equal measure, and a joy to read.

A lesson modern progressives would be remiss to ignore.

Any one of these women could fill a book on her own, but Lewis deftly threads their lives together into an irresistibly rumbustious account of this movement; sometimes affecting, sometimes very funny (the footnotes are a sass-filled joy) and sometimes shocking.

[Difficult Women] is meticulously researched and intelligently argued whilst also being extremely readable. Unusually for a non-fiction book, it is a page-turner. Lewis' style is playful and engaging, and after each chapter you find yourself turning the page asking eagerly "but what happened next?”… Interspersed with personal anecdotes and often funny footnote asides, she deals with the serious alongside the light-hearted in a way which demonstrates her talent as a writer, researcher and journalist

This history of feminism eschews feelgood, empowering clichés and goes in search of the 'difficult women' who shaped the fight for gender equality.

Engaging and witty, this history of feminist fights will keep you gripped to the last page.

This often hilariously funny book taught me about the women who fought for my freedoms. Unlike in so many accounts, these women are not canonised but written as they are, imperfect.

Helen Lewis is one of the very few journalists whose every word I will read.