The Tragedy on the London and Mid-Northern: A 19th century mystery involving a Russian killer and an amateur detective

Victor Lorenzo Whitechurch was born on the 12th March 1868 at Norham in Northumberland.

He was educated at Chichester Grammar School and then Chichester Theological College. Whitechurch held various positions as curate until he was appointed the vicar at St Michael's, Blewbury in 1904. In 1913 he became Chaplain to the Bishop of Oxford, and an honorary canon of Christ Church. By 1918 he had become the Rural Dean of Aylesbury.

Intriguingly he is known to a far wider audience because of his literary output of fiction although his initial work was as an editor. By the early years of the 20th Century his novels were appearing and then his short stories. In these his main theme was crime fiction, much of that happened on the railways and featured the detective Thorpe Hazell. These stories appeared in the Strand Magazine, Railway Magazine, Pearson's and Harmsworth's Magazines. Whitechurch placed him as far away from the very popular Sherlock Holmes as possible. He even had him be a vegetarian and had Scotland Yard vet his work for the accuracy of the police procedures.

However, his works also included those with other themes including religious books, novels set in the church and his autobiography, Concerning Himself, The story of an ordinary man (1909).

Victor L Whitechurch died on the 26th May 1933 at Buxton in Derbyshire. He was 65.