Blackmail Is Murder

Are you looking for an intriguing Victorian murder mystery based on a true crime? Then you will love Kathryn McMaster's "Blackmail, Sex and Lies." How far would you go to escape an abusive relationship? Would you turn to murder? For more than 160 years Scottish society and the world at large, were scandalised by the brazen and unbecoming behaviour of young Madeleine Hamilton Smith that ended in murder and mayhem, and remains unsolved to this day. Madeleine has everything going for her. She is a single young woman from a good, upper-middle class family. However, instead of romancing young men within her own social circles, she encourages a working-class man almost a decade older, soon becoming lovers. Her behaviour, the like seldom seen in polite society of the day, brings shame and disgrace upon her family. Despite being forbidden to see him, she defies her family by continuing the relationship, and ignores any advice from her friends. Her life changes forever when her lover suddenly dies. Arrested on suspicion of murder she finds herself the center of "The Trial of the Century" due to the nature of her actions, and the salacious contents of her love letters, now evidence, which causes maids and men to blush alike. Does Madeleine kill her lover because she sees no other way out of an increasingly difficult situation she just cannot extract herself from? Is it his vengeful threats of blackmail, or his disturbing and malicious treatment of her, that is his undoing? Does she poison him to silence him, or is she as innocent as she fiercly proclaims? By reading the unfolding of this true account, with British detectives McLauchlin and Murray hot on her heels, you can sift through their evidence, and make your own conclusions. Kathryn McMaster is the bestselling author of her debut novel, "Who Killed Little Johnny Gill?" Another Victorian murder mystery of a brutal, unsolved true crime of a young boy that shook the Nation. Her writing appeals to fans of authors like Anne Rule, Kate Summerscale or Julian Barnes.

First Published in 1975 Blackmail: Publicity and Secrecy in Everyday Life examines why blackmail is often taken more seriously than murder and why it is widely considered as a serious social threat. Both fictional and real-life situations are used to explore the kinds of social situation in which various individuals become vulnerable to blackmail. In isolating the key ingredients of reputational blackmail in Britain over the last hundred years, this book is not preoccupied with threats to accuse someone of a major criminal offence such as murder or armed robbery, but rather with those cases where the penalties of discovery are less clear-cut and where public reaction may be much more ambivalent. Mike Hepworth focuses attention on the way blackmail is stigmatized in criminological and other literature and the possible validity of the stereotype in the light of alternative interpretations. This book is an interesting read for scholars and researchers of criminology and sociology.

After solving the murder of Captain Rummings, Miss Victoria Parker is ready to resume her daily life in London. That sentiment is short-lived, however, when her friend Laura Grant is tasked to create a chapeau for the darling of the gossip columns. Miss Louisa Brooks is beautiful, rich, and engaged to a baron, and her patronage could make Laura's shop the talk of the ton... And talk they do - when the bride-to-be collapses dead in the millinery. When the constable places Laura at the top of his list of suspects, and with the real murderer on the loose, Victoria sets out to save her friend's life and reputation. The task proves daunting, for the list of people who find the baron's fiancée disagreeable is long, and rumors of her tumultuous past cast a shadow over the inquest. As James has been tasked by his brother to escort a young debutante around London, Vicky fears for the smile he now wears, leaving her to face her challenge alone. But as the clock draws closer to midnight, Vicky must not only save Laura, but also the new relationship with James - lest she risk both of those for whom she cares fleeing London, never to return. A cozy, romantic Regency murder mystery that will keep you guessing til the end.

Give your readers a look into the fascinating world of forensic investigation. This book details the investigative work involved in solving blackmail and bribery crimes. Students will learn about specialists in the field and examine the tools and techniques they use to expose and ensnare criminals. Readers will discover how cutting edge forensic science reveals the clues in the tiniest bits of evidence. Sidebars offer crime statistics and information about careers in criminal investigation. An annotated bibliography is included.

1951. Josie O'Conner travels to San Francisco to locate her gay brother, a private detective investigating a blackmail ring targeting lesbians and gay men. Jimmy's friends claim that just before he disappeared he became a rat, informing the cops on the bar community's nascent resistance in raids and brutality. Josie adopts Jimmy's trousers as well as his investigation, battling to clear his name and exact justice for the mounting number of Queer corpses. Set in legendary locations, Blackmail, My Love is a neo-noir novel distilling history and fiction into one package.

Sexual blackmail first reached public notice in the late eighteenth century when laws against sodomy were exploited by the unscrupulous to extort money from those they could entrap. Angus McLaren chronicles this parasitic crime, tracing its expansion in England and the United States through the Victorian era and into the first half of the twentieth century. The labeling of certain sexual acts as disreputable, if not actually criminal--abortion, infidelity, prostitution, and homosexuality--armed would-be blackmailers and led to a crescendo of court cases and public scandals in the 1920s and 1930s. As the importance of sexual respectability was inflated, so too was the spectacle of its loss. Charting the rise and fall of sexual taboos and the shifting tides of shame, McLaren enables us to survey evolving sexual practices and discussions. He has mined the archives to tell his story through a host of fascinating characters and cases, from male bounders to designing women, from badger games to gold diggers, from victimless crimes to homosexual outing. He shows how these stories shocked, educated, entertained, and destroyed the lives of their victims. He also demonstrates how muckraking journalists, con men, and vengeful women determined the boundaries of sexual respectability and damned those considered deviant. Ultimately, the sexual revolution of the 1960s blurred the long-rigid lines of respectability, leading to a rapid decline of blackmail fears. This fascinating view of the impact of regulating sexuality from the late Victorian Age to our own time demonstrates the centrality of blackmail to sexual practices, deviance, and the law.