Technical Difficulties

The Black Museum: New Scotland Yard by Bill Waddell

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I regret to report that this book is just not very good.

Waddell is a poor writer, showing little regard for his words: e.g., "euphoria" when (my guess is) he meant "hysteria" in discussing Rose Mylett, "another name added to the endless list of murdered women who were believed to be Ripper victims, when in fact there was very little to connect them with the Ripper's modus operandi. Such was the euphoria created by the press of the time" (79). He's preachy and prone to platitudes; his prose is clumsy; and he has lamentably zero flair for true crime narrative. I admit he has an uphill battle in trying to write a book about the Black Museum, but still.

He perpetuates several myths about Jack the Ripper (there were no farthings, polished or otherwise, found near Annie Chapman's body) while taking other writers severely to task for perpetuating myths, and I'm afraid I lost a great deal of respect for him when he started defending Sir Robert Anderson's "Mad Jew" story.

I bought this book because the odds of my ever having the chance to visit the Black Museum are very close to zero. And it does provide at least some of what I wanted. But as a book, it was disappointing.



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So mirrorthaw and I both have some low-grade virusy crud, which means that, instead of going to Midwest Horse Fair, I spent all day yesterday reading the stack of books that I'd hoped to ration out over a couple of weeks. It's all Victorian true crime (with one foray into Edwardian), and there's no common theme here besides murder.

( Kansas Charley )

( Dr. Crippen )

( Major Arthur Griffiths (author, neither murderer nor victim) )

( Mary Rogers )

( Charles Turner Bravo )

( Lizzie Borden )