Customer Reviews

Masters of Bow Street (Coronet Books)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is one of the best books ever written in this genre which is historical fiction., not mystery or suspense as one might think. There Mr. Creasey was the author of over 600 books using at least 17 psudonyms. This is the story of the birth of the western concept of a police force starting slightly before the Bow Street Runners and continuing on through the creation of the 1st modern police by Sir Robert Peel in the mid 1800's. To the best of my knowledge the historical "facts " used by the author are accurate and the storyline is first rate. In my opinion this was the best effort of a very good career. This book should never have gone out of print

This book offers a good historical perspective of the necessity of a police force to keep civil order in a society. It also contains much of the debate about the dangers of such a force if it is not constituted with checks and balances. Besides this the story of the creation of Scotland yard in London from the 1730's to the 1830's is told with interesting characters and is in good taste, although realistic in portraying these characters. I highly recommend it.

To the first reviewer's comments (all true btw) I would add that this would have been a perfect subject for a miniseries. They wouldn't have done justice to it but nevertheless............