Death in the air : the true story of a serial killer, the great London smog, and the strangling of a city
(2017)

Nonfiction

Book

Call Numbers:
364.15232/DAWSON,K

Availability

Locations Call Number Status
Adult Nonfiction 364.15232/DAWSON,K Available

Details

PUBLISHED
New York, NY : Hachette Books, 2017
©2017
EDITION
First edition
DESCRIPTION

viii, 341 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm

ISBN/ISSN
9780316506861, 0316506869 :, 0316506869, 9780316506861
LANGUAGE
English
NOTES

Prologue -- Pressure -- Blackout -- Restrained -- Trapped -- Bodies in the mist -- Postmortem -- Smothered -- Hearth and home -- Squeezed -- Buried -- Illumination -- Infamous -- Legacy -- Epilogue

In winter 1952, London automobiles and thousands of coal-burning hearths belched particulate matter into the air. But the smog that descended on December 5th of 1952 was different; it was a type that held the city hostage for five long days. Mass transit ground to a halt, criminals roamed the streets, and 12,000 people died. That same month, there was another killer at large in London: John Reginald Christie, who murdered at least six women. In a braided narrative that draws on extensive interviews, never-before-published material, and archival research, Dawson captivatingly recounts the intersecting stories of the these two killers and their longstanding impact on modern history