Murder, Mutiny & Mayhem

January 21, 2013
Natural storyteller and Dublin-based journalist O’Shea brings the past to life in 11 accounts of the “bad guys” of Irish history. With the exception of the 19th-century body-snatchers Burke and Hare, the figures will be unknown to most American readers, making this more than a warmed-over rehash of familiar stories. Imbibers of Jameson whiskey will be interested in the opening entry about a family member who was also a disturbingly devoted naturalist: in 1888, James ‘Sligo’ Jameson found himself in the Congo, where famous explorer Henry Stanley accused him of buying a young slave girl just to see her killed and eaten. Jameson’s ostensible motive? To sketch an authentic act of cannibalism. Other villains are equally fascinating and include a pirate recruited by Benjamin Franklin to harass the English, and the pair of military men responsible for the 1919 massacre in Amritsar, India. Readers who like their history told on a human scale—and with a little blood and backstabbing—will be entertained and educated.