A MASTER KILLING.

Hardback, 1st canadian edn. The complete account of the sensational Kinnear murder that shocked the solid citizens of Upper Canada in the summer of 1843. On the last day of July, 1843, the citizens of Toronto were shocked to hear of the "horrible bloody murder" of Thomas Kinnear, a respected property-owner of Richmond Hill. The hue and cry set up by both official and unofficial investigators against the 2 men and 2 women on whom suspicion fell, spread throughout the District and even across Lake Ontario into neighbouring New York state. Using material from original records of the time, the author has written a narrative account of these events. On one level, the story is readable as true Canadian crime, from the days before there was an organised police force. On another level, it is also a detailed picture of life in the 1840s, in which farmers and hotel-keepers, elected aldermen and homeless immigrants, corrupt officers and finagling entrepreneurs, servants and their masters, are shown rubbing shoulders with one another in a society that was full of human complication, no matter how primitively simple it may seem today. 200pp. Illus. + Sources. 8vo. h/back. Lacks fep, but covers Nr. F. in sunned and sl. frayed Nr. Vg. dw.