I received a free digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Rating | ⭐⭐
I would venture to guess that anyone who has an interest in historical true crime knows the name of Broadmoor. The facility opened in 1863 for the 'criminal lunatics' of society who needed to be confined for the safety of the public, and themselves. Each inmate committed some horrific crime - or attempted one, leading to their incarceration.
Of course we know that treatments of the time were in no way effective - fresh air was often considered a treatment for pretty much anything ailing someone in that time period. But inmates were also expected to work, and were provided leaisure activities to participate in as well. Even so, this was no idyllic place for anyone to be 'cured'. Doctors of the time simply did not have the knowledge or resources to provide actual treatment for the wide range of causes that brought inmates to their door.
While the stories were interesting, and many incredibly tragic, I was a bit disappointed with this book. I was hoping there would be more information about Broadmoor itself and the attempts of treatment at the time. Given the subtitle, it seemed like a logical expectation.
Instead, this was a collection of stories, some with a lot of detail and some without, about how these particular inmates ended up at Broadmoor throughoutt its history, up to the 1950s. When looking at the bibliography, much of it was simply a list of newspapers. I always appreciate when an author uses contemporary sources, but we also have to remember that Victorian-era newspaper accounts of crimes was rather...colorful.
This had the potential to be an interesting look at an infamous asylum, going back to its very beginning. Unfortunately that is not what we got here. And given that this was only about the crimes people committed, and not their later "treatment", the stories got repetitive after a while.
If you've been around a while, you might know that I am absolutely obsessed with the way Victorians were obsessed with crime and punishment, so I was really excited for this one. But with it being indidivual stories about the various murderers and would-be murderers who ended up behind Broadmoor's walls, there was no common thread to tie any of the stories together. I feel like exploration of society's attitudes toward mentall illness at the time, attitudes toward treatment and care, and toward punishment in between the stories could have made this a much more cohesive book.
I would say I still recommend this if you are interested in true crime stories from the era, as long as you do not expect a deeper look underneath the crimes at the root causes, or how they were treated for perceived lunacy.
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