Synopsis: Unsolved crimes have a special fascination, none more so than unsolved murders. The shock of the crime itself and the mystery surrounding it, the fear generated by the awareness a killer on the loose, the insight the cases give into outdated police methods, and the chance to speculate about the identity of the killer after so many years have passed - all these aspects of unsolved murder cases make them compelling reading.
In this companion volume to his best-selling Unsolved Murders of Victorian and Edwardian London, Jonathan Oates has selected over 20 haunting, sometimes shocking cases from the period between the two world wars. Included are the shooting of PC James Kelly in Gunnersbury, violent deaths associated with Fenian Conspiracies, the stabbing of the French acrobat Martial Lechevalier in Piccadilly, the strychnine poisoning of egg-seller Kusel Behr, the killing by arsenic of three members of a Croydon family, and, perhaps most gruesome of all, the case of the unidentified body parts found at Waterloo Station.
A short introduction into policing in the 1920s and 1930s is followed by a chapter on crime between the wars. We are next treated to a nice little selection of vignettes of some of the unsolved cases from 1920s and 1930s London. They are not overly long - covering the who (victim), what (the murder), how (was it committed), and though some credible suspects lurk just off page and potential reasons given for the crimes, no-one has yet been brought to justice.
Definitely one for the fans of true crime - easily readable, and very accessible for a broader range of reader.
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