GREAT AND HORRIBLE NEWS

Murder and Mayhem in Early Modern Britain told through nine historic crimes and one familiar obsession. In early modern England, murder was truly most foul. Trials were gossipy events packed to the rafters with noisome spectators. Executions were public proceedings which promised not only gore but desperate confessions and the grandest, most righteous human drama. Bookshops saw grisly stories of crime and death sell like hot cakes (some things don't change!) This history unfolds the true stories of murder, criminal investigation, early forensic techniques, high court trials and much more. In a thrilling narrative we follow a fugitive killer through the streets of London, and citizen detectives clamouring to help officials close the net and untangle the mystery of a suspected staged suicide through the newly emerging science of forensic pathology. We see a mother trying to clear her dead daughter's name while other women faced the accusations, sometimes true and sometimes not, of murdering their own children. A wonderful word picture and an intelligent and perceptive use of archive material. 296pp, paperback.