Customer Reviews

Lord High Executioner: An Unshamed Look at Hangmen, Headsmen, and Their Kind

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I found this book to be quite entertaining and informative look at people who executed other people in the name of the law. The book centered more or less around British justice system. In more ways then one, these executioners tries to be as professional as possible in their crafts. The author goes back to the mediveal period to the current time in telling accounts of how executions were done and conducted. Stories like one of James Barry (a hangman) who came up with a chart of how far a man should drop before his neck breaks on the knotted rope based on the body weight revealed that some people tries to make serious work out of their job.

The author writes with clarity and the book appears to be well researched. I supposed the author tries to insert an political anti-capital punishment bias into this book but I thought the effort was partially defeated because the book showed how capital punishment if properly applied, works! (Meaning, murderers don't killed again after they were hung!!) After that read this book, I was more for capital punishment then before.