Jill Dawson has a taste for murder. One of her earlier novels, the Orange shortlisted Fred and Edie, fictionalised the 1922 Bywaters and Thompson murder case. More recently, The Crime Writer cunningly blended an English episode from the life of Patricia Highsmith with elements of one of Highsmith’s own crime novels.
Now Dawson has turned to the Lucan case, which has rarely been far from the tabloid headlines since 1974. One November evening, an intruder bludgeoned to death the Lucan children’s nanny, Sandra Rivett, in the basement kitchen of their Belgravia home and viciously attacked Lady Lucan herself. Lord Lucan disappeared in murky circumstances and has never been found. At the inquest, he was named as Sandra Rivett’s murderer.
Most of the media coverage has focused on the missing earl rather than the dead nanny. In this fictional recreation of the case, Dawson redresses the balance by showing the viewpoint of his victim, reincarnated as the delightful and generous-hearted Mandy Rivers.
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