The Maul and the Pear Tree

First edition (publ. Constable)

The Maul and the Pear Tree: The Ratcliffe Highway Murders, 1811 is a true crime book by British historian T. A. Critchley and mystery writer P. D. James about the Ratcliff Highway murders, published in 1971.

According to the publisher's blurb, it is "one of the most elegant exercises in literary historical detection since Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time".