WHEN reading a Daily Express publication – The World's Greatest Detective Stories – an account of a Canadian true crime caught the attention of Addingham writer Alan Bytheway.

The case was so extraordinary the retired teacher and lecturer found the details hard to believe. How could two young men be so badly duped that they left England in January 1890 to consider the offer of a farm partnership in Niagra Falls, not appreciating the farm was non-existent?

How could an Oxford-educated son of a vicar find himself charged with the murder of a man whose body had been found in the unlikely confines of a Canadian swamp?

Determined to find out more about the case, in particular whether the trial had led to a miscarriage of justice, the author's research took him to Canada, where he visited the crime scene and obtained information from libraries and museums.

However, it was in Woodstock Museum, Ontario, that Alan struck gold, finding in the archives a cache of previously unpublished correspondence, which enabled him to throw new light on a crime that attracted media attention across both North America and Europe.

An unusual aspect of the author's book – Murder As A Fine Art: A True Story Of Fraud, Betrayal And Murder Across Two Continents – is that a chapter is devoted to a speculative theory the man charged with the crime, Reginald Birchall, may have been influenced in his behaviour by a black comedy essay, entitled Murder Considered As One Of The Fine Arts, written by his favourite author, Thomas de Quincey.

The book is available in print on demand at Amazon priced at £11.95 and on Kindle at £3.99.