John Gillam was a gambler. He faced financial ruin and was the victim of a sinister blackmail attempt. He is now dead. In this exceptional mystery, Dr Thorndyke is brought in to untangle the secrecy surrounding the death of John Gillam, a man not known for insanity and thoughts of suicide.

What made some 700 men and women in the Yorkshire town of Kingston-upon-Hull in the years 1837 to 1900 take their lives? This book attempts to answer this question and also to study how suicide was understood by victims, families, and friends; how the causes of suicide changed over time; and what coroners' inquests can tell us about Victorian life, beliefs, and values in general.

This two-part, eight-volume, reset edition draws together a range of sources from the early modern era through to the industrial age, to show the changes and continuities in responses to the social, political, legal and spiritual problems that self-murder posed.