A literary star returns with an addictive tale of   murder in Victorian London. Peter Ackroyd is   "our most exciting and original writer... one of   the few English writers of his generation who will   be read in a hundred years' time." --  The Sunday Times (London) The  Trial Of Elizabeth Cree is without a   doubt Peter Ackroyd's breakout book. It has all the   erudition and literary brilliance we expect of   Ackroyd, yet it is as vivid, scary, and spellbinding   as the best of Edgar Allan Poe. The year is 1880,   the setting London's poor and dangerous Limehouse   district, home to immigrants and criminals. A   series of brutal murders has occurred, and, as Ackroyd  leads us down London's dark streets, the sense of   time and place becomes overwhelmingly immediate   and real. We experience the sights and sounds of the   English music halls, smell the smells of London   slums, hear the hooves of horses on the cobblestone   streets, and attend the trial of Elizabeth Cree, a   woman accused of poisoning her husband but who may   be the one person who knows the truth about the   murders. The wonderfully rhythmic shifting of focus   from trial to back alleys, where we come upon   George Gissing, author of New Grub   Street, and even Karl Marx, gives the story a   tremendous depth and resonance beyond its page-turning   thriller plot. In The Trial Of Elizabeth   Cree, Peter Ackroyd has once again   confirmed his place as one of the great writers of our   time.