~ Scream For Me Long Beach!! ~

Firstly a bit on the author. Mr Geoffrey Abbott was a Yeoman Warder at the Tower Of London. I guess this job gave him a lot of insight into history especially of the more terrifying kind.
The inside cover of this book reads " A mixture of bungled executions, strange last requests and classic final one-liners from medieval times to the present day ".

How true. A hard cover book of 239 pages with artworks giving clearer descriptions of each situation where possible. The English language used in this book is simple and this makes an extra pleasure to read it smoothly.

Most of the stories here are taken from archieves, libraries, old newspapers, old journals and leads back to the 17th and 18th century, up to some stories from the 20th century. Some of the executions described are hanging, decapitation by axe, sword, electric chair, firing squad, gas chambers and some medieval executions like " breaking on the wheel " , which is basically tying a man spread eagled on a wheel and the executioner use a huge metal stick to hit hard on various joints of the body, so that at the end of the execution, the condemned man will basically be like a rag doll as all his joints are smashed to pieces.

Most of the stories are horrific and sad. Tales of how the hanging can go wrong in Britain where not only is the neck of the condemned broken but the whole head is ripped from the body. Tales especially from France of the Guillotine where men and women have their head decapitated and detailed descriptions of what goes on during that time, tales where the chopped-off head has its eyes blinking or the mouth moving as if to speak.
Horrible tales of execution thru the electric chairs , lethal injections and gas chambers in America, and these includes what the condemned have for their last meal.
Especially sad are those tales where the condemned goes thru unnecessary extra torture, especially those who are supposed to be burned at the stake, but unfortunately, the wind blows the flame away from the burnt person, so he or she died slowly in small flames. Tales where last minute reprieves were not delivered on time.

There are also tales about the public who attend the execution.
An interesting tale is from somewhere in the 17th century England, where about 20,000 people gathered to watch an execution. It ends up with everyone going thru a crush and about 100 men , women and children died due to stampade and suffocation.
Some happy endings are also described, where the crowd freed the condemned whom they think is innocent, and beat up the executioner and public officials.
There are also some unnatural happenings describe, such as men who are presumed dead after hanging, waking up and being alive.

For me, the saddest must be the hanging of 38 Red Indian warriors by the White people during the American Civil War. It describe how these 38 Red Indians prepare to be executed by doing their dance and motivating each other before they were hanged together at the same time.
All in all. This is a good read. I love it.