Every area of the UK has its share of violent crimes
- events so shocking they linger in the community's collective memory for many years
- &, in this respect, the north east of England is no different.
The cases include: The wages clerk shot through the head for the bag of money he was carrying as he travelled by train from Newcastle to Widdrington in 1910. The Monkwearmouth woman who was so drunk when her lover struck her about the head with an axe, exposing her brain, she was able to walk to the hospital where she died of her injuries. The homosexual who lured teenage boys to out-of-the-way places to have sex with them, strangled them & then made feeble botched attempts to burn the bodies.
Of course, no book on murder in the Tyne & Wear district would be complete without reference to Mary Bell, the eleven-year old who was convicted of killing two little boys, aged just four & three. Wade treats the case with unusual sensitivity, placing it in a context of poverty, alcoholism, family breakdown & the absence of any moral guidance.