I was really looking forward to reading but I was not disappointed,this is a really fascinating book about a murder I had never heard of before.

On the 8th December 1854 in Warren Street George More, fizzy drink merchant was killed by Emmanuel Barthelemy a French exile in London. He went Warren Street armed with two istory, 24 cartridges, a dagger and a ticker to get to Hamburg by boat. He was accompanied by a woman wearing a veil.

The book is about Barthelemy early life and the events leading up to that and and the consequences of the crime.

In the mid 19th century a murder was committed in Warren Street in London. The victim, a well-to-do manufacturer of fizzy drinks, and the murderer, a French anarchist. By the time he killed in London, Barthelmy had already been sentenced twice for killings in France and was at the centre of scandal amongst the ex-pat population in London. Barthelmy was a member of a revolutionary group who had been integral in the barricade fighting in Paris in 1848 and had been pardoned from his first sentence to the galleys as part of political reconciliation. After his second killing Barthelmy escaped from prison and crossed the channel to London. He fought an illegal duel in which his opposition was killed but escaped the gallows on a technicality. His motive for the Warren Street murder remains unsure, as does the identity of his companion that night, but this time luck had run out for him.
This is a really fascinating book which takes a little known crime and explores the rich seam of history behind it. The story of the Paris Revolutionaries of the late 1840s is not particularly well known – they feature in Les Miserables – however Barthelemy is a character that surpasses fiction. It is obvious that this was a clever and driven man but his actions are wild and almost unbelievable. Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction.

I am sorry this book really did nothing form apart from the first couple of chapters. I found it dry and difficult to really become interested in. It seemed like a series of repeating events without anything to make me want to know what happened next