Book review: The Unseeing

THE UNSEEING is based on the so-called Edgeware Road murder of 1837, when laundress Hannah Brown was murdered, her body dismembered and her head, torso and limbs scattered all over London. 

Anna Mazzola

Tinder Press, €17.70;

ebook, €8.85

Her fiance James Greenacre and his mistress Sarah Gale were arrested and sentenced to hang.

Following the verdict, Sarah petitioned the Home Office for mercy, even though at her trial she said nothing in her own defence or to incriminate Greenacre.

Anna Mazzola, whose day job is a criminal justice solicitor, imagines why Sarah didn’t speak up in court, even though her life was at stake, and what role she played in the murder.

She paints an evocative picture of Victorian London and there’s a neat little twist at the end, but it’s a long time coming.

Much of the book comprises fruitless conversations between Sarah and the lawyer re-examining her case, which stall an otherwise gripping tale.