Books we like ... and books we're not too fussed about
Mark Isaacs
Wharncliffe Local History 2009
I found this book, which tells of murders in Cardiff over the last 150 years, very interesting. Isaacs includes photographs of the scenes of some of the crimes as they are now; it is grim to note how mostly non-descript places I have passed many times without noticing them were the scenes of such cruelty and violence. In particular I think of the murder of a shopkeeper, never solved, in my own area of Roath in 1936. Similarly he speculates about what might have happened to the children of a woman murdered less than 50 years ago; like him I often found myself wondering what had become of the people involved in the stories he tells. The answer is, of course, that he just does not know
As usual in books of this nature, a rather annoying portentous tone is occasionally adopted (for example: “Love is such a dangerous thing. It can manifest itself in many ways”) and sometimes a rather florid style: “Who was this man for hire? This sordid Pied Piper secretly created to spirit away dead infants of the city?” There are also a number of errors which better proof reading would have remedied: “baring” instead of “bearing”; “Llanederyn”, justice “metered” out a couple of times. In addition early in the book we are reliably informed that William Mackenzie, a Chief Superintendent in Cardiff, died in 1912, a year before he retired. Those quibbles aside, to anyone interested in the history of Cardiff, this will be a fascinating read. I note that this is one of an extensive series of similar books relating to parts of the United Kingdom, so if it does seem of only esoteric interest, there is probably another closer to home, perhaps even literally up your street.
15 March 2010
http://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/?product_id=1918
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