A Good Night For a Murder

Kim Ess has carved out a very specific lane with A Good Night For a Murder: true crime stories from the Victorian era and the 1800s more broadly. Jack the Ripper is part of the rotation, naturally, but the real strength of this show is the cases you have not heard of. She covers poisoners like Christiana Edmunds, con artists like Cassie Chadwick, and vanishing acts like the Dorothy Arnold disappearance — all told with the kind of historical context that makes you understand how different (and sometimes how eerily similar) the 19th century was from today. The format is solo narration with deep research, and Ess has a natural warmth in her delivery that keeps the episodes from feeling like a history lecture. She grounds each story in the physical reality of the period — what the streets smelled like, what people wore, how the legal system actually functioned — which makes the crimes feel immediate rather than dusty. Episodes run about 45 minutes to an hour, dropping monthly with occasional bonus content on Patreon. With 77 episodes and a 4.8-star rating on Apple Podcasts, this is still a relatively small show, but the audience it has built is genuinely loyal. If you have already burned through the big Ripper podcasts and want something that situates the Whitechapel murders within the broader world of Victorian crime, this is the natural next listen.