Victorian Liverpool had an unenviable reputation for violence. This book sets out to assess both the scale and variety of Liverpool’s violence, and the means by which it was policed. It has been exhaustively researched and is persuasively argued. It adds significantly to the wider knowledge of, and to the debates about the history of criminal violence ... Read moreand of policing. Finally, it might also be read usefully by contemporary politicians and media pundits. John Archer's study "The Monster Evil" is not so much a police history in a narrow sense but rather a history of violence. Archer reconstructs Liverpool's reputation as the criminal capital of Britain during the nineteenth century.
Belegex. H-Soz-u-Kult
... the book is well written and perceptive. The accounts are often grim, but nonetheless fascinating, and the book should appeal to a wide audience.
Journal of British Studies, Vol. 51, No. 2
The Monster Evil is the fruit of extensive research, and the first genuinely comprehensive treatment of violent crime in this period. Archer produces much more than a ‘case study’ of violence in Victorian England ; The Monster Evil is a powerful account, the likes of which local historians of crime would do well to imitate.
Crime, Histoire & Sociétés / Crime, History & Societies, Vol. 16, no 1
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