Historical Murder

The Maul and the Pear Tree by P.D. James and T. A. Critchley

In 1811 before the constitution of the British Police Force, two mass murders took place along Ratcliffe Highway in the East End of London along the trading docks of the commercial fleets.

In one murder, a merchant who sold to the sailors from the international fleets, his wife, his infant son, and his teen aged servant were brutally murdered after midnight. The murders weapons were a maul (pictured)

and some sharp knives (unknown).

A week or so after these murders, another set of murders (using the same weapons), were done at a pub a few blocks down a street perpendicular to Ratcliffe Highway called The King's Arms. The proprietor and his wife and a female servant were killed in the same manner as the merchant and his family.

The murders incited the Public imagination and the hunt for the Muderer or Murderers became a Public Cause. A man was eventually arrested on a weak probable cause, but he committed suicide in his goal cell before he could be tried or convicted or released on insufficient evidence. The authors speculate on their favorite suspect(s) for the murders.

I enjoy P.D. James' mystery novels but I did not find this Real World Crime book very interesting.

The Pear Tree was where the Maul hung out before it took up its murdering ways.