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Rating: 
Summary: Executioners are people too.....
Review: I found this book to be quite entertaining and informative look at people who executed other people in the name of the law. The book centered more or less around British justice system. In more ways then one, these executioners tries to be as professional as possible in their crafts. The author goes back to the mediveal period to the current time in telling accounts of how executions were done and conducted. Stories like one of James Barry (a hangman) who came up with a chart of how far a man should drop before his neck breaks on the knotted rope based on the body weight revealed that some people tries to make serious work out of their job. The author writes with clarity and the book appears to be well researched. I supposed the author tries to insert an political anti-capital punishment bias into this book but I thought the effort was partially defeated because the book showed how capital punishment if properly applied, works! (Meaning, murderers don't killed again after they were hung!!) After that read this book, I was more for capital punishment then before.
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining and biased
Review: If you've ever wondered about the men and women who administer the death penalty, you'll enjoy this work. Engel goes back to Elizabethan times to show how the job of executioner has evolved. He also discusses how those who fill the position have fared, both inwardly and in society at large, and makes a case for the inhumanity of capital punishment based on how it affects those who administer it. Those adamantly in favour of the death penalty may find Engel's bias offensive. Those adamantly against the death penalty, however, will find his book enlightening and informative.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating
Review: Mr.Engel gives us an enlightened account of the history of the personalties who haunt our nightmares: the executioners. He is generally objective in his treatment of that morbid fraternity but cannot resist the temptation to editorialize on the humanity and efficacy of the death penalty. I, for one, join Mr. Engle in opposing it and I am thankful for his frank and honest treatment of the subject.
Rating: 
Summary: A vibrant & witty approach to the science of execution
Review: Not only does this book take you through the long drop, the short drop, beheading, it takes you through the lives of the death bringers. Some who were truly masters of their craft, and humerous tales of those who would need four hits with a sharp axe in order to take the head. Not nearly as dry as most books written on this subject, has good illustrations and would be an excellent research tool for any writer. Begins with a focus on England, especially the infamous "road to Tyburn" and continues on the focus on hanging methods in Canada, and lastly come to focus on the evolution of death in America. Also gives a brief note to the only documented female headsmen that I have yet to come across. High marks! Where most history books run by numbers names, and locations, this one takes the time to give you an intense look at the method and the personality of each on of its subjects. Very well researched and I cannot praise the quality of the writing enough.
Rating:
Summary: full of interesting details
Review: This book contains a good amount of informaton that is hard to come by, as was stated in previous reviews. The comment that I feel the need to add is that I found this book to be poorly written. There were many cases of bad syntax and inappropriate punctuation, some of which made the text unclear. The flow of my reading was interrupted more than a few times by the need to pause and decipher a chunk of text. However, if this is not a great deterrent to you, this book is worth purchasing as it is an amusing and informative account of a very peculiar trade.
Rating:
Summary: full of interesting details
Review: This book contains a good amount of informaton that is hard to come by, as was stated in previous reviews. The comment that I feel the need to add is that I found this book to be poorly written. There were many cases of bad syntax and inappropriate punctuation, some of which made the text unclear. The flow of my reading was interrupted more than a few times by the need to pause and decipher a chunk of text. However, if this is not a great deterrent to you, this book is worth purchasing as it is an amusing and informative account of a very peculiar trade.
Rating:
Summary: Light Jests and Heavy Sermons
Review: Wry! Using mock detachment, clinical detail, understatement and overstatement, Howard Engel presents a chronicle of capital punishment through the eyes, ears, minds and hearts of the world's tribe of hangmen, headsmen and their henchmen. With feigned scientific aloofness and a straight face, Engel allows the death penalty to speak for itself against itself. His masterful treatment of a sordid subject proves that a light jester teaches more than a heavy sermonizer.
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