The Victorians devoured it and, as Lottie Moggach’s fourth novel shows, they were as gawking and prone to erroneous judgments as any crowd on social media. It was a celebrated case in its day, coming soon after the Ripper murders, and it is now revived in Moggach’s vivid, immersive imagination. Her fiancé Cosmo lives in Kensington in an altogether brighter and more colourful house, lit by a sumptuous Murano chandelier. But once Cosmo gets out of the asylum and plies his own version of the tale, any hope ends. Mrs Pearcey is a poor woman, fatally trapped by her romantic passion for a brutal man and by her lack of options.