These are true crime cases, athough that’s not mentioned in the description. Only half the book is about the Vanishing Civil Servant (a.k.a the David Hamilton murder). The next is an American murder in Florida and the last section a piece about the Charing Cross Trunk murder.

I wish I could rate it higher. There are several reasons I can’t.

One is the typos and grammar errors. There are several typos of the type spell check won’t catch – e.g. lad for had (page 1), “Scullion were sure” (loc 77) – There are also a few sentences that directly contradict the previous text e.g. “…people would never expect him to write. It would be suspicious if he didn’t.” This type of error persists throughout the book, and it is jarring.

As a non-fiction retelling, I can’t credit the ‘plot twists’ to the author. It is a very high level overview of the cases, without getting into the detail, and I have read better retellings. There aren’t really enough procedural details to interest researchers, nor enough drama for mystery readers.

I’m not sure who the audience would be for this work, but it is definitely hindered by the grammar and spelling issues.