View source for The Doctor's Wife is Dead by Andrew Tierney

{{infobox1
|title=The Doctor's Wife is Dead
|sort= Doctor's Wife is Dead
|author=Andrew Tierney 
|reviewer= Amy Etherington
|genre=True Crime
|summary= A gripping true crime which explores the mysterious death of the wife of a prosperous doctor in nineteenth-century Ireland. Andrew Tierney explores the trial of a husband accused of murdering his wife.It's shocking and gritty yet very well written. Highly recommend. 
|rating=4.5
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|pages=272
|publisher=Penguin Ireland
|date=February 2017
|isbn= 978-1844883929
|website= https://www.penguin.co.uk/authors/andrew-tierney/129182/ 
|cover=Tierney_Doctor
|aznuk=1844883922
|aznus=1844883922
}}

In 1849 a woman named Ellen Langley died at her home in Nenagh, Co. Tipperary Ireland. She was the wife of a prosperous doctor and came from a well-respected family; so why was she buried in a pauper's coffin?  Why had she been confined to the grim attic rooms of the house she shared with her husband and then exiled to rented lodgings in the most impoverished part of their famine-ravaged town? Why had her death caused such uproar and ultimately, why had her husband been charged with murder?

Andrew Tierney explores every movement of the inquest in to Ellen Langley's mysterious death, gradually revealing every twist and turn of her husband's trial. Prior to picking this up, I wasn't familiar with this case which was notorious throughout Ireland during the mid-nineteenth century, but this book makes for an interesting read. The relationship between Ellen Langley (of whom Andrew Tierney is a distant descendent) and her husband was clearly strained but the actions of the latter are certainly questionable, and Tierney's research is eloquent and thorough throughout. I was never once bored or overwhelmed by information, since Tierney's style reveals key facts about the case gradually so you don't get tangled in a web of evidence. 

Up until reading this, I didn't realise how much I actually enjoy true crime. I'm trying to incorporate more non-fiction in to my reading routine and this worked wonderfully for me. A gritty legal drama set in Victorian Ireland – the premise alone had me gripped before I even turned the front cover, so I knew before I started reading that this was going to be something I was going to relish. There's lots of mystery in this account, predominantly surrounding the doctor himself and whether he did in fact murder his wife. There's lots of evidence to say he did, but it was he who called for an inquest in to her death first in order to prove his innocence. Questions are rife throughout and I thought Andrew Tierney handled it very well. 
 
This book doesn't just simply cover Ellen Langley's death and the murder trial which follows. As tragic as it is, and Tierney spares no detail in letting you know what this poor woman suffered during her final months, it also explores the impact the Great Famine had on Ireland's population. It's a social commentary on the poverty that tore through the country during the potato blight and the desperate measures people went to just to survive, in addition to painting a social critique of the confined lives women were expected to lead. The author guides the reader through the period, bringing to light the social attitudes to poverty, to women, to crime and the prison system, and it makes for a fascinating read in respect of the murder case of a woman who was trapped in this society. I was left with a thirst to learn more about this period, so if another true crime or non-fiction which covers this era pops up on my radar I'll be sure to check it out. Many thanks to the publishers for sending a copy to The Bookbag.

For more true crime, I would recommend [[The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale]] which examines the infamous Road Hill House murder that took place in Victorian England.

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