Historical fiction
Russell Croft’s Victorian fiction with a legal backdrop is entertainingly written and teeming with meticulously researched vignettes of life in the mid-nineteenth century.
His first novel Bring Him In Mad was self-published in 2012. He is currently writing a second novel, also set in the mid-nineteenth century, which has a maritime flavour.
Bring Him In Mad
Bring Him In Mad is a fictionalised account of the William Windham lunacy trial, which lasted for thirty-four days in the winter of 1861-2 – just after the death of Queen Victoria’s beloved Prince Albert.
The book is based on an illustrated and unabridged transcript of the trial, published in pamphlet form by W Oliver of the Strand.
The author has woven factual and fictional elements together in order to create a satisfying story out of this now largely forgotten cause célèbre. He has also blended-in much fascinating and informative period detail.
The book raises issues concerning the proper boundaries of an individual’s freedom of action and of the interplay between madness and morality, that have distinctly modern resonances.
Reviews for Bring Him In Mad
“Take a journey to Victorian Britain”
“What an adventure!”
“Unputdownable”
“Highly entertaining”
