alexandrasramblingreviews's review
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
2.5
I listened to this at the end of January and have been wondering how best to review this as I kept wondering if knowing about the case before would change my opinion on how I felt about this and have ultimately decided that I think my points about this are still valid.
This audiobook is about a 'crime spree' that took place in the North of England before the outbreak of WW2 where multiple people claim to have been attacked by a man with a razor and is told in a mix of dramatisations, interviews and is narrated by actress Carolyn Pickles.
I was not particularly a fan of the dramatisations, it's reminiscent of re-enactments that some true crime documentaries do, so I think if you are a fan of them you may enjoy this. However I personally found them a bit out of place and at times it's attempts to bring some humour felt a bit out of place. I feel like the dramatisations can go off on a tangent and is basically there to fill run time. The dramatisations is where most of the sound effects and music tended to be and can be quite distracting.
It does have some interviews with experts talking about the case but I don't feel like it was handled that well, I'm still wondering if it started as a true crime show and was then converted into an audibook for audible as there were some quotes that would make sense in a visual media than an audio media e.g "We are walking down this street", "We are now on this street" - what street? "Here's a picture of the family" - I can't see its an audiobook!
One of the things that happened in the dramatisation is the discussion of woman taking self defence classes to protect themselves from 'the slasher', it made the woman seem like a bunch of giggling school girls when I'm sure the woman would've taken it more seriously considering many people were getting attacked and they feared they might be next, and the conclusion to this case doesn't make me feel any different to the way this made me feel as I'm sure the woman back then didn't know what was really happening (hell the police took a while to figure it out themselves).
Another thing that bothered me was the discussion of a couple of the female victims. It talked about how 'the slasher' didn't have a preference for victims in terms of looks and sex, so why when it got to Margaret Reynolds did it discuss her looks? And not in a postive way, it's already been discussed that 'the slasher' doesn't care so why is it a surprise that they attacked her, are only good looking people allowed to be attacked? When it came to talk about 19 year old Beatrice Sorrell it talked about her relationship with a 46 year old like that someone makes her inherently untrustworthy? Also when describing a picture of her they use the quote "difficult to interpret that lipstick smile", like she is some cunning vixen. It does not describe any of the male victims in such ways, and in fact doesn't judge one of the male victims for lying about his attack to try and catch 'the slasher' and get the reward money at all. Again, knowing how the case concluded does not change my stance on how this made me feel.
I would like to mention that I did like how they talked about how circumstances in those days was instrumental in how the case was handled, how more people could read now and that newspapers were wide spread therefore more people could keep up with the case, and how police would sometimes feed information to reporters, and how that could both help and hinder an investigation. It does mention how there was no police woman but does not go into detail about how having female police officers could've helped especially when it came to the female victims, it seems like they haphazardly threw it in so they could say they talked about it rather than having a proper discussion about it.
I will also say that something I did change my mind about, in a way - knowing how the case ended, was the mentions of how war was looming. When I was listening to it I would get confused as to why it was getting brought up when this book was supposed to be about 'The Halifax Slasher'. I do think that it could've been done better (the whole audiobook actually), but I do know the context of it at the end.
'The Halifax Slasher' as a case is fascinating, and I would like to see it discussed better. I felt like they were relying on people not knowing the case so they could have an entertaining 'gotcha' moment rather than discussing how this case of'mass hysteria' manifested. It's why I still find the discussion of some of the female vicitms distasteful even knowing the outcome of the case, no matter what happend they still deserved to be treated with respect and not in a 'I can be dergatory towards these woman because of how the case concluded', 'I can treat these woman who were trying to help themselves as laughable because of how the case ended'. Personally, I would say save yourself time and just read up on this case online.
This audiobook is about a 'crime spree' that took place in the North of England before the outbreak of WW2 where multiple people claim to have been attacked by a man with a razor and is told in a mix of dramatisations, interviews and is narrated by actress Carolyn Pickles.
I was not particularly a fan of the dramatisations, it's reminiscent of re-enactments that some true crime documentaries do, so I think if you are a fan of them you may enjoy this. However I personally found them a bit out of place and at times it's attempts to bring some humour felt a bit out of place. I feel like the dramatisations can go off on a tangent and is basically there to fill run time. The dramatisations is where most of the sound effects and music tended to be and can be quite distracting.
It does have some interviews with experts talking about the case but I don't feel like it was handled that well, I'm still wondering if it started as a true crime show and was then converted into an audibook for audible as there were some quotes that would make sense in a visual media than an audio media e.g "We are walking down this street", "We are now on this street" - what street? "Here's a picture of the family" - I can't see its an audiobook!
One of the things that happened in the dramatisation is the discussion of woman taking self defence classes to protect themselves from 'the slasher', it made the woman seem like a bunch of giggling school girls when I'm sure the woman would've taken it more seriously considering many people were getting attacked and they feared they might be next, and the conclusion to this case doesn't make me feel any different to the way this made me feel as I'm sure the woman back then didn't know what was really happening (hell the police took a while to figure it out themselves).
Another thing that bothered me was the discussion of a couple of the female victims. It talked about how 'the slasher' didn't have a preference for victims in terms of looks and sex, so why when it got to Margaret Reynolds did it discuss her looks? And not in a postive way, it's already been discussed that 'the slasher' doesn't care so why is it a surprise that they attacked her, are only good looking people allowed to be attacked? When it came to talk about 19 year old Beatrice Sorrell it talked about her relationship with a 46 year old like that someone makes her inherently untrustworthy? Also when describing a picture of her they use the quote "difficult to interpret that lipstick smile", like she is some cunning vixen. It does not describe any of the male victims in such ways, and in fact doesn't judge one of the male victims for lying about his attack to try and catch 'the slasher' and get the reward money at all. Again, knowing how the case concluded does not change my stance on how this made me feel.
I would like to mention that I did like how they talked about how circumstances in those days was instrumental in how the case was handled, how more people could read now and that newspapers were wide spread therefore more people could keep up with the case, and how police would sometimes feed information to reporters, and how that could both help and hinder an investigation. It does mention how there was no police woman but does not go into detail about how having female police officers could've helped especially when it came to the female victims, it seems like they haphazardly threw it in so they could say they talked about it rather than having a proper discussion about it.
I will also say that something I did change my mind about, in a way - knowing how the case ended, was the mentions of how war was looming. When I was listening to it I would get confused as to why it was getting brought up when this book was supposed to be about 'The Halifax Slasher'. I do think that it could've been done better (the whole audiobook actually), but I do know the context of it at the end.
'The Halifax Slasher' as a case is fascinating, and I would like to see it discussed better. I felt like they were relying on people not knowing the case so they could have an entertaining 'gotcha' moment rather than discussing how this case of
emmanovella's review
3.0
The story itself was interesting but I didn't particularly enjoy the dramatisations. I think the fact I went into this immediately after listening to West Cork which is a more typical journalist style podcast this just felt... more simple? I guess.
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