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weaselweader's review
5.0
A perfect collection for lovers of the true crime genre!
The Walrus, an award-winning Canadian magazine, makes the typically Canadian rather subdued claim that it “provokes new thinking and sparks conversation on matters vital to Canadians”. This “book”, that resembles a magazine in its choice of very thin gloss paper and binding, is an anthology of true-crime articles that have been published at some point across the magazine’s sixteen-year history. Lovers of the genre will appreciate the depth of the coverage of the dark side of human behaviour – wrongful conviction, vanished and kidnapped children, police misconduct and forced confessions, con men, corruption and political malfeasance, capital punishment, beheadings and executioners, child abuse, the racism and hatred of neo-Nazis and white supremacists, undercover police operations, the uncertain nature of eyewitness evidence, sexual assault and rape, mental illness and violence, and much more. And yet for all this, the writer’s approach is informative and gripping without a hint of pulp crime or gratuitous sensationalism. Each article is exactly the right length – not so short as to be cursory or to gloss over necessary details and information, yet not so long as to become repetitive or boring in any fashion.
Gripping from first page to last and definitely recommended. It’s worth noting that those readers with poorer eyesight will definitely need cheaters or a magnifying glass. The print is very small indeed and the book’s 127 pages of text reads easily like 250-300 pages of a book with more normal sized text!
Paul Weiss
The Walrus, an award-winning Canadian magazine, makes the typically Canadian rather subdued claim that it “provokes new thinking and sparks conversation on matters vital to Canadians”. This “book”, that resembles a magazine in its choice of very thin gloss paper and binding, is an anthology of true-crime articles that have been published at some point across the magazine’s sixteen-year history. Lovers of the genre will appreciate the depth of the coverage of the dark side of human behaviour – wrongful conviction, vanished and kidnapped children, police misconduct and forced confessions, con men, corruption and political malfeasance, capital punishment, beheadings and executioners, child abuse, the racism and hatred of neo-Nazis and white supremacists, undercover police operations, the uncertain nature of eyewitness evidence, sexual assault and rape, mental illness and violence, and much more. And yet for all this, the writer’s approach is informative and gripping without a hint of pulp crime or gratuitous sensationalism. Each article is exactly the right length – not so short as to be cursory or to gloss over necessary details and information, yet not so long as to become repetitive or boring in any fashion.
Gripping from first page to last and definitely recommended. It’s worth noting that those readers with poorer eyesight will definitely need cheaters or a magnifying glass. The print is very small indeed and the book’s 127 pages of text reads easily like 250-300 pages of a book with more normal sized text!
Paul Weiss
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