Glasgow, 1855. When handsome Pierre Emile L'Angelier, a marauding Jerseyman with a passion for ferns, sets his sights on twenty-year-old debutante Madeleine Hamilton-Smith, it's not the first time he's had ideas above his station. For Madeleine, bored and wayward, he is an exciting distraction, and they embark on a clandestine affair. But when she throws him over for a more eligible suitor, Emile threatens to send their private letters to Madeleine's father and ruin her.





When Emile is found dead of arsenic poisoning, Madeleine is arrested and her explicit correspondence exposed at a trial that scandalized Victorian society. But was she simply a victim of her class and gender? And what if someone else had a motive for murder and revenge...? 



 

Based on meticulous research, this dramatic retelling of one of the most notorious murder cases of the Victorian era offers an ingenious, chilling and brilliantly plausible solution to a devious killing that has baffled true crime fans for 170 years.



Katherine grew up in Cornwall where she performed at theatres across the Southwest. After Oxford University, she joined the RSC and went on to work with Harold Pinter, Caryl Churchill, Phyllis Nagy and Stephen Daldry, playing roles ranging from Phaedra to Blanche DuBois. Katherine founded Palimpsest in 2013 to create fully imagined, immersive worlds.

Katherine has adapted The Seagull, The Cherry Orchard and Ivanov for BBC Radio 3 and The Castle of Otranto for BBC Radio 4.