William Collins, 304pp, £18.99
‘The early moderns were obsessed by stories of death, crime and justice,’ declares Adams in her introduction. Her book, wrote Nick Rennison, ‘proves her point with a succession of grisly but engrossing cases. People in the past enjoyed learning about true crime as much as we do – and the bloodier the better. We have podcasts and gritty TV dramas; they had lurid broadside ballads and cheap pamphlets.’ However, ‘one thing that has changed over the centuries, thankfully, is the nature of punishment.
