Riveting ... Simultaneously revels in and criticizes the press’s shameless bravado in shaping the Christie murder investigation ... The author questions our own ambivalent complicity in the 'peepshow' of true-crime reportage ... Ms. Summerscale’s evocation of Christie’s purse-lipped, self-satisfaction and his bossy, neurotic pride relates British repression to obsession, prudishness to prurience.
Absorbing ... If, like me, you inhaled Summerscale’s gripping true crime The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher, your expectations will be high for The Peepshow. So I should warn you that Peepshow is not quite as riveting as Suspicions ... Still, Peepshow is very good ... Calm, sinuous prose ... [Summerscale] knows the details of the story are ghastly enough that she doesn’t need to strain for effects, so the seeming ordinariness of her prose creates suspense ... Summerscale explores new territory. One of her smart choices was to include parallel stories of journalists who covered the trial of Christie ... Offers persuasive social analysis ... Offers convincing new explanations for a couple of murders Christie may have committed ... Absorbing, authoritative and well researched. Some readers may not want to dive into the gruesome details but, if you do, you’ll find that, as with Christie himself, there is a lot more to The Peepshow than meets the eye.
Summerscale...brings a novelist’s eye and a sociologist’s understanding to a trove of thrilling material ... There’s so much to admire in this engaging, deeply researched book. But though nothing Summerscale writes is dull, her story loses steam, and a bit of focus, after the conclusion of Christie’s trial, about three-quarters of the way through.
Remarkable ... Bleak, uncompromising ... Summerscale restores the dignity of Christie’s victims by telling their stories in the round as best she can ... A vivid portrait of a bitterly divided society ... Powerful.
An oblique commentary on our appetite for domestic horror and a glimpse into the British public’s mindset during the 1940s and 50s. Neither is very edifying ... Summerscale as ever makes an excellent researcher and a somewhat dispassionate writer: her prose is doggedly unscintillating throughout. And yet in her methodical way she skewers an era ... Books like The Peepshow invite us to look closer, and yet the darkness of human behaviour refuses to yield its secret.
Summerscale’s greatest achievement...is to empathize with the victims of Christie’s violence. In the 'true crime' genre there is a tendency to focus on the monstrous criminal, leaving his victims to fade into the background. The author resists this temptation, revealing the complex characters of the women who were murdered ... A meticulously researched and lively tale of crime, journalism and gender roles in postwar Britain. Inevitably, [Summerscale] is sometimes forced to speculate about aspects of lives for which there is no written evidence, but her depth of knowledge and storytelling skills allow her to do so convincingly.
