In the summer of 1895, thirteen year old Robert Coombes murdered his mother. 
 I loved The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher, which used the murder of a three year old boy as a narrative structure to look at how police and detectives functioned in Victorian society (particularly where the process of investigation of upper class households by lower class detectives ruffled class sensibilities). 
 The Wicked Boy doesn't have the same impact. At first, I thought it was looking at the scandal of 'penny dreadfuls', then it look at the criminal justice system, then it looks at the treatment of mental illness, and then it veers off entirely to go over Australia's participation in World War I. 
 I enjoyed every part of The Wicked Boy, but it didn't have the same satisfying impact without the broader point. It ended up just being about this one boy, with broader issues only mentioned as interesting asides.