Kate Summerscale talks to Natalie Haynes

Kate Summerscale (The Suspicions of Mr Whicher) brings her groundbreaking form of novelistic non-fiction writing to bear on the murders at 10 Rillington Place – a sensational true crime story from 1950s London, followed relentlessly by tabloids and public alike. The bodies of multiple young women are discovered hidden in a dingy terrace house, and a nationwide manhunt is launched for the tenant of the ground-floor flat, a former policeman named Reg Christie.

Summerscale’s research uncovers the lives of the victims, and sheds fascinating light both on what happened inside the house and the origins of our fixation with true crime.