Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths in Cardiff takes the reader on a sinister journey through the history of local crime and conspiracy, meeting villains of all sorts along the way - casual or calculating killers, murderous husbands and lovers, gangsters, robbers, poisoners and suicides. There is no shortage of harrowing and revealing episodes in Cardiff's past, and Mark Isaacs' fascinating book recalls many grisly events and sad or unsavoury individuals whose conduct throws a harsh light on the history of the city.
Among the many shocking - and revealing - cases the author describes are the murder of a Welsh Protestant by an Irish Catholic that provoked rioting; the double life of a respectable widow poisoned with arsenic; the exploits of a 'Jack the Ripper' killer in Cardiff's back streets; the throat-slashing revenge of the Cardiff Race Track Gang; the still-mysterious wartime murder of Alice Pittman; the case of the Somalian sailor arrested for the brutal slaying of an elderly shopkeeper; the demise of Granville Jenkins who was cut to ribbons by a machete, and the accidental or deliberate electrocution of Mrs Darling.
Mark Isaacs' chronicle of Cardiff's hidden past - the history the city would prefer to forget - will be compelling reading for anyone who is interested in the dark side of human nature.