An evening with Hallie Rubenhold

This summer, we're thrilled to welcome Baillie Gifford prize-winning author Hallie Rubenhold to Chorleywood, where she'll be chatting about her fabulous new book, Story of a Murder.

No murderer should ever be the keeper of their victim's story …

On 1 February, 1910, vivacious music hall performer, Belle Elmore, suddenly vanished from her north London home, causing alarm among her circle of female friends, the entertainers of the Music Hall Ladies’ Guild who demanded an immediate investigation.

They could not have known what they would provoke: the unearthing of a gruesome secret, followed by a fevered manhunt for the prime suspect: Belle’s husband, medical fraudster, Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen.

Hiding in the shadows of this evergreen tale is Crippen’s typist and lover, Ethel Le Neve – was she really just ‘an innocent young girl’ in thrall to a powerful older man as so many people have since reported?

In this epic examination of one of the most infamous murders of the twentieth century, prizewinning social historian Hallie Rubenhold gives voice to those who have never properly been heard – the women.