The Jigsaw Murders

By Jeremy Craddock https://jeremycraddock.journoportfolio.com/ @JezCraddock

Narrated by Jonathan Keeble

Published by FW Howes Ltd (audio) https://www.wfhowes.co.uk/ @WFHowes The History Press (book and eBook) https://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/ @TheHistoryPress

352 pages (10 hours 46 minutes) ISBN 9780750995207

Publication date 28 May 2021

The Jigsaw Murders was long listed for The ALCS Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction at the 2022 CWA Daggers awards.

I listened to the audiobook version from Audible https://www.audible.co.uk/ @audibleuk

The Cover

Not the most striking of covers, but then the subject matter is quite limiting.

From the blurb

In September 1935, Dr Buck Ruxton strangled his wife, Isabella, whom he suspected of having an affair, in their Lancashire home while their three children slept in their beds. When the nanny, Mary Rogerson, disturbed him in the act, he killed her, too. To hide his crimes, he dismembered and chopped up the bodies, removing any distinguishing features, before he disposed of them in a ravine on the Scottish borders.

It took the genius of professors Sydney Smith and John Glaister, and their groundbreaking forensic techniques, to piece together the identities of the bodies. And when the finger of suspicion finally pointed at Ruxton, he acquired the services of the most famous lawyer in the land, Norman Birkett QC, who, against all the odds, had successfully defended the man accused of the Brighton Trunk Murders the previous year. Would he succeed this time?

The Narrator

Not the easiest task to review a true crime novel where the narrator has no use for different voices or accents. Mr Keeble does an excellent job in managing to avoid being monotone but also giving gravitas and dignity to the story.

My thoughts

Reading true crime can feel a little ghoulish, especially if the crime is recent and key people are still alive, after all real crime is not entertainment. If the case is much older then it doesn’t feel quite so intrusive and if the story includes important discoveries, then there can be a fascination if it is told with a degree of tact and compassion. For me The Jigsaw Murders fits these criteria, the facts of the case produced groundbreaking discoveries and the story is written with some sensitivity whilst remaining a fascinating read.

To me giving a crime a sobriquet feels wrong, being crass and insensitive. Often (probably more so in the previous couple of centuries) this nickname is dreamt up by the press, as shocking headlines sell newspapers. Newspapers play an important part in opening lines of investigation in this case, with the chief crime correspondent of the News of the World at the head of the pack. Whilst a slightly tasteless nickname it is quite apt, as a jigsaw is what faced the academics at Edinburgh University, as they must piece together the incomplete and decomposing body parts of two victims. These remains were jumbled together to and scattered at the deposition site known locally as the Devil’s Beef Tub, a hollow in hills near Moffatt in Scotland. An incredible effort would be needed to identify the remains, and in doing so several new techniques were tried and developed.

Central to events is Indian doctor Bukhtyar Chompa Rustomji Ratanji Hakim, who became known as Buck Ruxton. Ruxton can be considered something of a very complex character even by modern standards. Coming from a wealthy Indian Parsee family in Bombay and with a French mother he had an exotic lineage. To which can be added dashing good looks, an ability to charm and a dapper dress sense. Attributes that made him stand out in 20s and 30s Edinburgh and Lancaster. It was not all surface veneer though; he was a Doctor of Medicine and of Surgery, so he was supremely talented as his patients would later attest. He earned a considerable income but also spent prodigiously loving the best things in life, clothing, furniture, art and fine food. He and his wife were also reckless gamblers. He was generous in spirit though, and there were numerous instances of his treating of the poor and disadvantaged for free, this being in the days before the NHS. Such was the esteem and affection he was held in that he still had local support through his trial and after, something that was to be echoed some sixty-five years later with Dr Harold Shipman until the full extent of his deeds were uncovered. Ruxton was prone to emotional outbursts though and his marriage to his common law wife Isabella was tempestuous. It seems Shakespeare is never far away and Ruxton cuts a bit of an Othello like character albeit one where Iago resides in his head.

Less is said about the victims which was a bit of a shame, but that could be down to there being fewer corroborating facts. The author suggests that Buck and Isabella must have been a striking couple and it is easy to see his point. Isabella was quite an independent woman for the time, working as a restaurant manager and had rather an extrovert personality. She was taller than average with an athletic build and looks that could be described as a little mannish, certainly a woman one would notice when she entered a room. Both victims are sensitively portrayed though.

There are several sidebar anecdotes which some readers might consider padding but for me round out the recounting of the murder and highlight its significance. The number of historically important men (sadly women very restricted in the 1930s) who had a role in the case is staggering, so it does seem right to give some of the spotlight to them. On the forensics alone there were Professors John Glaister, James Couper Brash and Sydney Smith and entomologist Alexander Means who did significant groundbreaking work. At the trial the defence was conducted by Norman Burkitt KC and the prosecution by David Maxwell Fyfe KC and Hartley Shawcross, who ten years later would meet up in a ‘Trial of the Century’. Burkitt was a judge at the main Nuremberg tribunal with Maxwell Fyfe and Shawcross being Great Britain’s lead prosecutors. Finally, like the colloquialism invoking the fat lady (Brünnhilde) at the opera, a guilty verdict would likely lead to an appointment with a member of the Pierrepoint family.

The research is excellent with uncorroborated anecdotes and facts left out and the temptation to embellish appears to have been avoided. The writing style is accessible, about as entertaining as it is possible with such a subject matter. A little of the macabre is left in such as the bathtub from the Ruxton home being used as a horse trough for Lancaster police horses for many years before ending in a museum. The structure is well considered and cogent with all the pieces slotted together itself like a complex jigsaw. Any reader with an interest in the development of forensic techniques and the human condition will find this a fascinating book. 

The Jigsaw Murders is a compelling true crime story told with the tact and consideration it deserves.