Murder At Wrotham Hill

Before dawn on 31 October 1946, less than a year after World War Two, on a bleak roadside in Kent, a woman looks to hitch a lift to London. A lorry driver stops. The encounter ends in murder.

The victim, Dagmar Petrzywalski, was a gentle eccentric spinster who sought the peace of the countryside after her London home was bombed. She embodied Austerity Britain’s self-sacrifice and thrift. Her murderer, Harold Hagger, was the opposite, with a life marked by petty crimes, deceived wives, sloughed-off identities, and army desertions.

In Murder at Wrotham Hill, Diana Souhami explores the significance of this crime and shows that even after the killing of twenty million people in a global conflict, one death still has much to tell us. She paints a gripping portrait of post-war Britain that raises questions about murder, punishment, and destiny.

Her characters include England’s first celebrity policeman, Fabian of the Yard; the celebrated forensic scientist Keith Simpson; and history’s most famous hangman, Albert Pierrepoint.