The Great Pictorial History of World Crime is a large two‐volume work covering crime from earliest times to the global terrorism of today. There are 16 chapters. Volume 1 contains Assassination; Bigamy; Burglary; Cannibalism; Drugs; Fraud; Gangs, Gangsters and Organized Crime; and Kidnapping, while Volume 2 covers Murder ‐ Celebrity Slayings; Murder ‐ Mass Murder; Murder ‐ Serial Killers; Murder ‐ Unsolved Homicides; Piracy; Robbery; Secret Criminal Societies and Terrorism. Included is an extensive bibliography of more than 5,000 entries and a comprehensive name and subject index.
Each chapter begins with an essay that introduces the topic and provides a concise overview of the historical, social, and sometimes political significance of the crime. Subjects are developed crime‐by‐crime, chronologically from ancient to modern times through descriptive entries covering the criminal acts, modus operandi, criminal background information and motives. Chronologies at the end of chapters include other notable cases not covered fully in the main body of the text.
The author, Jay Robert Nash, several times winner of the American Library Association's Best Reference Work award has previously authored the eight‐volume Encyclopaedia of World Crime (Nash, 1989) and has published numerous crime‐related books. This Great Pictorial History includes more than 2,000 illustrations, almost half of which are claimed to be published for the first time and drawn from the author's personal collection of photographs, drawings, and primary documents. Even though the more modern photographs would have been taken in colour, they are all reproduced in this work in black and white. The reader should be grateful for this, as this is truly a book of death. It is hard to imagine a volume with more pictures of corpses between its covers than this work. Just about every US prohibition era gangster who did not die in his bed is shown, blasted in his car, or lying shot dead in some doorway.
While some may consider it unfair, it is inevitable that the reader will seek some cases and not find them. This reviewer conducted an informal poll among friends for “famous British murderers”. Jack the Ripper (the first choice) takes up almost 24 pages complete with gory illustrations, suspects and theories. On the other hand, Dr Crippen (hanged 1910) rates only three sentences (in the introduction to the chapter on robbery), which do not that the true significance of the case was the first use of the newly‐developed radio in the apprehension of a criminal. (Unfortunately Crippen manages to be misprinted as “Crippin” in one of the three sentences!) The Moors Murderers (Ian Brady and Myra Hindley) only get a column (including their mug shots) among “All Other Notable Worldwide Kidnappings and Skyjackings in the twentieth century. The reader will also not find this work to be the source for the modern crime of computer fraud, which ought to have a whole section. The nearest it gets is The $10 Million Computer Bank Scam 1978 which seems to be the one and only computer crime mentioned, and old at that. Perhaps this subject does not appeal to the author as it lacks corpses!
The style of writing is populist rather than academic, but that does not make it any the less desirable. It is a work that many may simply wish to browse, and, to use a cliché, it is a book which is difficult to put down. At £170 it is expensive, but if the purchase criterion is based on likely usage, then it may be considered as excellent value for money. While the work may not be truly comprehensive, and may not please every reader all of the time, it is nonetheless a very useful, interesting and informative reference work suitable for public and reference libraries, as well as a good search tool for researchers.
