This is another of Conan Doyle's investigations in the early 20th century into a real criminal case. As in the case of Mrs Emsley, this is an older case, also from 1860. Unlike that one, there can be no plausible doubt as to the fact of the guilt of the accused William Youngman in the murder of his mother, younger brothers and sweetheart; the only doubt hinges on whether a plea of insanity would have been more appropriate. He made strenuous efforts to persuade his affianced, Mary Streeter, to take out life assurance before they married, the eventual taking out of which seems to have been the motive for her murder at least; his attempts to claim it was his mother who committed the murders and that he killed her in self-defence did not stand up to scrutiny on account of the strength needed to carry out these savage multiple stabbings. There was a history of insanity on both sides of the family. As in the Mrs Emsley case, most of this short book is a transcript of the trial, though it is generally more readable than the one in that case; prefaced with some background analysis by Doyle in which he seems halfheartedly to say there might have been another explanation for the murders, but I don't think he really believes it. Again, no rating as the original content is very short.