As an early modern historian and an avid reader of true crime, I was very excited to dive into Adams’ work. This book is clearly well-researched and skillfully written, I think the reviews that claim Adams just repeats newspaper stories don’t appreciate how difficult it can be to piece together primary sources in a period that tends to lack detailed and preserved accounts. The first few stories were fascinating, but it did become somewhat repetitive when several of the stories were about suicide and we kept hearing about how self-murder was considered a terrible crime. It would have been good to see more diversity of crime and deeper analysis from the author. Overall though, very readable and interesting.

A really ( enjoyably) macabre read. Well written and reviewed and written with great humour and panache. Loved it !

Fascinating! True crime as it should be done - fascinating details mingled with historical fact making for superb, eye opening and education reading

An absolutely macabre fascinating account of deaths of real people in London during the middle part of the last 1000 years.

It looks at nine different deaths and provides not just facts, but a complete view into the surroundings, providing almost smells and the feeling of being their as a witness to the act, along side the coroner investigating the cases.

It was interesting to see how suicide acts were treated as self murder meaning the family left behind could lose it all, but if a noble person took their life it was treated differently!

I received this book from netgalley in return for a honest review.

A well researched and entertaining look at crime in Tudor and Stuart England. The author has taken a series of cases and researched the original sources to recreate what happened, what people said about it and the outcome for the perpetrator if s/he was found. The result is a fascinating read, that will inform and interest the reader. From early 'baby farms' to political deaths to the consequences of suicide, the cases all vary and take the reader back to this time when social mores and laws were quite different to today and where we see the beginnings of forensic science. I thoroughly enjoyed them all and would highly recommend this book.

My favourites were probably the ones where we have records to show the families of the deceased making every effort to prove their child's innocence or bring their murderer to justice. My only disappointment was that almost all the cases were set in the south of England, and it would be great to see a second volume of stories from north of Watford!

Thank you to NetGalley, 4th Estate and William Collins for allowing me access to the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I had heard of Great and Horrible News on a podcast I listen to so I was delighted to get an ARC copy of the book.

Blessin Adams did not let me down. The book is well written and she has done her research very well. The book focuses on 9 crimes in early modern England. I liked how they were more of a personal nature as some of the information came from peoples diaries. It made it more relatable as to how harsh social conditions were in times past.

Thanks to Netgalley and 4th Estate and William Collins for the ARC copy of the book. This review is my own opinion.

More social history than true crime, Adams' book is gory and bloody but doesn't shy away from delving into the social history and laws of the time to depict what brought about the circumstances of these deaths.

Apologies for the late review, I lost my notes on this book!

As a fan of true crime (to an extent) Great and Horrible News by Blessin Adams was an interesting and informative read on a world devoid of top forensics and adequate policing. Adams does a great job weaving in true stories of horrendous crimes, in the wider context of early modern Britain - well paced, and well written. It is easy to forget that true crime, and the 'sensationalism' often provided by crimes in modern days, is not a new feat - from the production of broadsides to public hangings (where over 50,000 people would gather crime was an entertainment. Adam presents a book of 9 crimes, often disturbing, channeling it is nevertheless well dealt with.

A riveting look at true crime in the 16th and 17th century. A really wide range of cases, plus some truly enthralling social context. An excellent read.

There’s been a murder!

In early modern England, crime was often brutal and so were the punishments. The public were fascinated and enthralled by the secrets and scandals behind the crimes and turned up in their thousands to watch the resulting executions. Their appetite for true crime was fed by the cheap news pamphlets that sensationalised the stories and whipped up public anger against individuals or sections of society. In this book, Adams uses examples culled from court and coroner records, news sheets and from letters and journals to examine how crimes were dealt with investigatively and through the criminal justice system, and how victims and criminals were perceived by the public. She argues that this period, 1500-1700, saw the beginnings of a secular, scientific approach to investigation, with increasing reliance on physical evidence, influenced by the cultural changes that accompanied the Renaissance, the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment. And she shows that, while we may no longer gather to watch gruesome public executions, the public fascination with crime and punishment hasn’t altered much in the intervening centuries.

As with all the best true crime, the crimes are merely a starting point. Adams uses each of the nine cases to highlight one or more aspects of the justice system and of the society of day. She has clearly researched the period thoroughly and writes very well, moving me more than once to anger or even tears, and using the scant records available to her to build convincing pictures of the people involved. If I have a criticism, it’s that sometimes I felt she perhaps embellished the bare bones a little to improve the storytelling aspects – I wondered more than once how she could have known what someone’s motivation was or how she could be so sure what had happened when she didn’t cite a specific source. But these moments were rare and I never felt she extrapolated unreasonably – I always felt her assumptions, if that’s what they were, were more likely to be true than not. And certainly her storytelling skills made this a fascinating read, humanising the history in a way that makes it more effective than a dry recounting of facts and statistics ever could.

There’s so much packed into each of the nine cases that I’m not even going to try to cover it all here. Instead I’ve picked a few examples to try to give a flavour of how Adams tells each story and uses it to take us deep into the culture of the period. Given that the stories cover 200 years, there’s plenty of scope for her to show us some of the changes that were happening, especially with regards to the change from religious to secular approaches to crime.

The first story is of John, a young apprentice murdered by his friend Nathaniel so that Nathaniel could rob the shop of John’s master. Adams tells us about Cheapside and the traders who worked there, specialising in luxury goods like gold and silk. She shows how the street names in the surrounding area originated from the various markets held there – Milk Street, Bread Street, etc. The murder is gruesomely told as it was in the pamphlets of the time, and the investigation seems efficient and surprisingly similar to modern investigations, relying on physical clues, witnesses, background checks on suspects, etc. She takes us beyond Nathaniel's conviction to his time in Newgate, describing the appalling conditions in which prisoners were kept. She explains the need for him to be “converted” to satisfy the prevailing religious agenda, and how this was achieved. As she takes us through his eventual confession, guilt and remorse, and his execution by public hanging, Adams shows how the public, again very similar to today, soon lost interest in John, the victim, and became fixated on Nathaniel, the murderer, even feeling sympathy for him as his remorse was reported in the news sheets.

Elizabeth was a young girl sent as a maid to a man who repeatedly raped her then threw her out when she became pregnant. Elizabeth was one of the lucky ones – her mother and sister hid her so she was saved from life on the streets. The baby died at birth and she was tried for infanticide, but found innocent. This story is used as a basis to discuss women's vulnerability to their masters, the horrific misogynistic laws around bastardy and infanticide, and early forensic ways of differentiating between stillbirth and infanticide. Adams shows the importance of midwives as expert witnesses at this time in deciding on how the death of a newborn occurred. I found this story particularly heartbreaking despite the fact that Elizabeth was found innocent. The lack of records means we don't know what happened to her in her future life.

A couple of the stories involve suicide, and Adams shows the inhumanity of the laws surrounding this subject. Suicide was considered a crime and those found guilty would have their property forfeited, leaving their families destitute. This led desperate families to try to make suicides look like accident or murder in order to avoid forfeiture, and of course this had to be done immediately while the family was still dealing with shock and grief. Forfeiture was not enough for a harsh religiously-influenced state – the body of the suicide would then be desecrated before being buried in an unconsecrated pit, which of course at that time meant no hope of eternal salvation. Adams shows that suicide then, as today, often arose out of depression and mental illness, but she also gives an example of what was thought of as “honourable suicide”, a hangover from the days of chivalry, when a man who had failed in some way, especially in public life, would take his own life. Adams shows that while in general the public strongly disapproved of suicide, honourable suicide often met with a more sympathetic reaction.

Baby farms, political crimes, religious mania – these and many more aspects of crime and justice are also covered in this fascinating book. I found every story interesting and felt Adams got a really great balance between facts and the human traumas behind them. One I heartily recommend both to true crime fans, and to people more generally interested in the social and cultural aspects of the early modern period.

Great and horrible indeed! This was a fascinating, well resereached and well written collection of stories that, while gruesome and pretty dark, were a brilliant read.

The author didn't sugar-coat the harshness of the reality of life in the periods mentioned, but bought a modern sensitivity and spotlight onto them - none more so than the second story, a sad tale of a young woman being taken advantage of and then judged horribly by the religious attitudes of the time.

I found this really interesting and really well written.

I love learning about history and I enjoy true crime, so when I heard the author on a podcast, I knew that this was a book to add to my list!

This is a readable account of nine true crimes in early modern England in the Tudor period and walks us through all the ins and outs of how murders were committed, solved, punished and commemorated in the period, as well as what we can learn when we look at these crimes today: the way that we treat single mothers, or view suicide- a crime until the 1960s- although we've moved on in lots of ways, there are still things that our early modern ancestors would recognise, I think.

I was particularly interested in reading about an early example of attempts at forensic scientist in a case that wasn't exactly how it seemed, as well as the way that a community came together to protect a family who were at risk of losing everything because one of their family members may have taken his own life- a crime that would see their entire estate forfeited to the crown, leaving them potentially destitute- offer insights to how normal people viewed the harsh laws set upon them from those who had no idea what ordinary life entailed.

As well as incredibly researched accounts of each crime, we learn about the media that grew up around these crimes, the ballads and the broadsides that acted in the same way modern tabloids and clickbait does today whenever there's a grisly crime. In terms of our thirst for knowledge for all things grisly, it seems like we haven't changed much in 500 years.

A well researched, intriguing, and gripping historical book or a book about historical true crime.
It's compelling, well written, and informative.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine

Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

As a writer of true crime myself (The Bloody Yorkshire series) I understand the amount of research goes into this type of book. This was an excellent read, so well written and researched. Recommended to all true crime lovers.

Throughout history crime has been both private and public, in this book Adams reflects that our current obsession with true crime is actually centuries old. She takes ten cases from 1500 to 1700 and explores them through contemporary sources. The fact that Adams was a serving police detective is clearly evident in the writing. This is a wonderful book, rich with research but also thinking about the popular culture of the times. I loved it!

Blessin Adams has done well to trade her former career as a police officer for an academic life specialising in law and criminal history. This is an absolutely belting title with a rather unique focus on true crime. She concentrates in great detail on a number of cases from Tudor and Stuart times and brings every case very vividly to life.

This isn’t always an easy read. The opening pages are stomach churning in detail and set the scene. But there’s nothing gratuitous and these are accounts of real events taken from contemporaneous records. These include diaries, court records, coroners reports, media report, parish records and more. The research is extensive and metics and Adams written style is engaging and gripping. She considers the legal system, policing, inquests and the selection of cases is diverse. This is a genuine slice of social history. It should appeal to anyone interested in true crime I’m hoping for a lot more from this gifted author.

My thanks to the publisher for a review copy via Netgalley.

Murder Most Foul…
A well researched, intricate, fascinating and wholly informative account of deadly death and murder most foul in early modern England. Personal tales go into great depth and unfold in incredible detail as the similarities between our modern day fascination with true crime and scandalous events and that of the dates in question become shockingly evident. Human nature, it seems, never really changes at all.

In the time before modern media, true crime was still a popular subject. Bookshops & pubs from the early modern period covered here, right up until the Victorian era, stocked pamphlets & even song sheets about notorious & grisly crimes. Before the advent of forensic science, a police force, & the modern justice system, how were crimes solved? The author uses inquests records for coroner's courts, parish archives, letters, diaries etc to put together the circumstances surrounding the nine crimes discussed in the book.
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I love reading about true crime, & I love history too, so this book was an absolute got-to-read for me. This is a true crime book with a difference, the crimes are from the 1500 & 1600s in England (roughly from the early reign of Henry VIII to the start of William & Mary's reign). The author does a great job of explaining the English justice system of the time & how things worked, which was very interesting to read, alongside showing societal prejudices. The second case aptly highlights the double standards of the time: young women who were in domestic service were often taken advantage of by the men of the household & then turned outdoors when they became pregnant. They were then reviled by the rest of society including their neighbours for their 'moral failings', whilst guess what happened to the men? That's right, usually absolutely nothing. If the women should miscarry or their baby not survive for long, they then ran the risk of being prosecuted for murder, even if there was little evidence. One wonders just how many lives were needlessly cut short during this time.

It's an intriguing, informative read which I found fascinating, but please be aware of the trigger warnings as there are some sensitive subjects dealt with. The cases cover suicides, & violent murders including infanticide - it's certainly not an easy read. I give this book full marks though as I think the author does such a good job of drawing the reader straight into the cases, by setting the scene & introducing those involved, & explaining the justice system of the time. 5 stars

TWs: violent murder, suicide, death of children, miscarriage, animal cruelty & death.

My thanks to NetGalley & publishers, 4th Estate/William Collins, for the opportunity to read an ARC.

Absolutely fascinating and thoroughly enjoyable. I have a forensics degree and also a love of history so this book was totally up my street.
The level of detail was excellent and gave a real insight into unusual and shocking happenings from a very interesting period of history. Some of the treatment of criminals and perceived criminals is shocking to our modern eye, not least suicides and miscarriage during pregnancy so this is truly eye opening. I learned a great deal from reading about this, not least the way the families of those who took their own life were treated. The early attempts at forensics and pathology really appealed to me as I had not previously explored this angle in my studies and the academics of that time had more knowledge that I’d previously given credit for.
I’d definitely recommend this book, it is well written, accessible to all including those without prior knowledge of the areas and has a wide appeal I’m sure.

A truly fascinating insight into nine crimes from the Tudor and Stuart time period, detailing the investigation, court trial and even executions. A must for all true crime readers.