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

The case was so extraordinary that 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 that 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?

The murdered man was Frederick Benwell from Cheltenham; the man charged with the crime was Reginald Birchall from Accrington; the detective who investigated the case was Toronto detective, John Wilson Murray.

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. Similarly, he found additional information in a number of regional libraries, including Accrington and Wakefield. The value of genealogical research was not ignored.

However, it was in Woodstock Museum, Ontario, that he struck gold, finding in the archives a cache of previously unpublished correspondence which enabled him to throw new light on a crime which attracted media attention across both North America and Europe.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 that Reginald Birchall may have been influenced in his behaviour by a black comedy essay, 'Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts' written by his favourite author, Thomas de Quincey.

Published yesterday (September 30) the book is available on print on demand at Amazon priced at £11.95 and on Kindle at £3.99.