Charlie Peace: Murder, Mayhem and the Master of Disguise

by Ben Johnson

A devil once lived in God’s own county. A grotesque figure with many names and many faces, he could slip into the home of an unsuspecting family with the silent stealth of a cool night time breeze, and leave without a trace.

Spending his nocturnal hours limping through the dirty streets with villainy on his mind, and impishly disappearing into the industrial smoke that hung over Victorian Sheffield like a perpetual storm cloud, this was a devil who was to write his own place in the folklore of his home town.

Despite his fearsome reputation, this was a devil of flesh and blood. He was just a man, but a man with an unrivaled talent in the dark art of criminality and such was his fame for murder and mayhem, that he was the most wanted man in England for a time.

Tales of burglary, murder, daring escapes, and a truly shocking miscarriage of justice feature in this biography, along with moments of lost love, damaged pride, and violent revenge. It is a story of a man who had turned to crime through necessity, but consciously chose to continue in an ever spiraling life of wickedness.

Once immortalized in Madame Tussaud’s Chamber of Horrors, his gnarled and prematurely aged features would be the last image his victims ever saw, yet ironically, he was known by the name of Peace.

Genres: True Crime

160 pages, Paperback

Published September 28, 2016

About the author

Librarian Note: This profile contains multiple authors.

Reviews

[Nicki · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've heard of Charlie Peace, but I didn't know much about him. We didn't learn about him at school, even though he was born in Doncaster. Of course a lot of people in Sheffield have heard his name, but not all the historic detail. I learnt a lot from this book. For example, Charlie Peace's father being a one legged circus performer, his love for animals, the affairs with women including Arthur Dyson's wife and his poor wife who must have been a saint. It always good to learn about the city you live in and I will definitely read more books from this author.

[patti rocha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting true crime book of a sorta mastermind type criminal of the day.

[Crime Traveller · Rating 5 out of 5]

The name Charlie Peace is unlikely to be recognised by many aside from those true crime historians who have stumbled upon his story. It is however a remarkable story of a man who used his unique skills and abilities to become a master criminal. A criminal who during the Victorian era at one point became the most wanted man in England.

Charlie Peace: Murder, Mayhem and the Master of Disguise by Ben W. Johnson is the engaging biography of this figure, telling of his development from a loved and happy little boy into a darkened soul who looked to criminal activity to achieve the life and wealth that legitimate work in Victorian workhouses, factories, and coal mines just could not offer. Charlie Peace started out as a petty thief who moved onto home burglaries to find items he could sell in return for cash. He was also a man who murdered two innocent men. He was caught numerous times and spent years behind bars where instead of seeing the error of his ways he perfected his methods and learned from the older criminals around him.

Ben Johnson has an enjoyable writing style that is light and easy to read, piecing together this narrative to intrigue the reader and keep them turning pages. I very much enjoyed this book and gaining an insight into not only who Charlie Peace was from a criminal perspective but who he was as a person, as best as can be for a figure who lived and died over 100 years ago.

There is a clear developmental path illustrated here, highlighting how life events, his own attitudes and emotions and his actions all played their part in shaping who we know now as Charlie Peace. While this man, as Ben Johnson rightly points out, should never be remembered as some form of Victorian hero, he was a character who displayed an astonishing ability to transform himself and achieve feats that few other criminal figures can match. A great example of historical true crime and an exciting tale of a Victorian criminal overshadowed only by the notorious Jack the Ripper murders of Whitechapel in 1888.

Read my full review of Charlie Peace on Crime Traveller at: http://www.crimetraveller.org/2016/11...