AN author's detective work into a celebrated Victorian murder has taken him to the Caribbean, where he has uncovered new evidence on the case.

The poisoning of Charles Bravo at his home, The Priory in Balham, has been one of the most enduring of murder mysteries from the period.

In his new book Death at The Priory - Love, Sex and Murder in Victorian England, Cheltenham author James Ruddick has laid out his theory.

In April 1876, Bravo had staggered out of his room crying for help. He died in agony several days later from antimony poisoning.

The ensuing inquest was spectacular. His wife Florence, they had only been married for a few months, was forced to relay details of her unhappy marriage and her previous relations with the celebrated Dr James Gully.

Florence, separated and later widowed by her alcoholic first husband, met Gully when she came for treatment at his famous water cure facility in Malvern.

They became lovers despite the difference in age and he had settled near her in Balham, staying in the area even after her marriage.

Without giving the game away, there are a number of possible suspects.

Gully has been touted as a likely candidate in some quarters. Ruddick has very little time for this theory, although Agatha Christie believed it to be him.

He examines the case against Florence, who he presents as a remarkable woman, who defied the conventions of the age by refusing to accept the lot of a Victorian wife.

There are practical problems to naming Florence as the murderer and indeed she was never charged.

There is also a reasonable case to be made against Jane Cox, Florence's housemaid who appears to have told a succession of lies to doctors and the police.

It is here that Ruddick's new research has really started to pay off, tracing Cox to the Caribbean after the murder and finding very relevant letters in the records office at Spanish Town, Jamaica.

The letters cast very grave doubt on Cox's motive for murder but cannot account for her very strange behaviour - Mr Ruddick thinks he can.

There are plenty of references to Malvern in the book and Mr Ruddick's sources include Pamela Hurle's Portrait of Malvern, crime writer Richard Whittington-Egan and water cure authorities Dr John Harcup and Cora Weaver.

The book is published on October 4 by Atlantic Books Hardback, priced £14.99.