Death in the Air

August 7, 2017
Lethal air pollution brushes up against a gruesome strangler in this evocative but scattered historical study. Journalist Dawson recreates the London smog of December 1952, when a windless high-pressure system prevented fumes from the city’s coal-burning heaters, stoves, and smokestacks from dispersing; the resulting yellow-brown, soot-flecked miasma reduced visibility to one yard and seeped into houses, killing thousands of people. Dawson’s account of environmental catastrophe is vividly atmospheric as she describes Londoners staggering blindly in the fog and watching loved ones die. Jammed in is the story of John Reginald Christie, a sad-sack serial killer who murdered several women years before the smog and several more in the months afterward, but who did nothing noteworthy during the smog itself. Other than serving as a metaphorical embodiment of the smog (he asphyxiated victims with coal gas), Christie has no clear purpose in the narrative, but his story does supply an intriguing true-crime subplot in the smog’s aftermath while parliamentary debate about the smog drags on. The smushed-together narratives add up to a grim, Dickensian portrait of postwar London: broke, grimy, dejected, deranged around the edges, and gasping for breath.

August 1, 2017
Intertwining stories of two infamous killers in postwar London.In her first book, documentary producer Dawson (Journalism/Univ. of Texas) provides more of an examination of the London smog of 1952 than the murderous actions of serial killer John Reginald Christie (1899-1953). Because the smog was a more prolific killer than Christie, that story unquestionably warrants the author's attention. Over five days, London was overcome by a "fog"--later rebranded as smog--so thick that visibility was almost nonexistent, and the air filled with toxic levels of multiple pollutants. More than 4,000 people died in the weeks immediately following the smog, and another 7,000-8,000 deaths were attributed to the poisonous air over the subsequent few months. In the same winter, Christie murdered four women, including his wife, bringing his total known victims to six. Dawson deftly weaves the tales together in an engrossing narrative that reads like a thriller. Christie's story benefits from being told alongside that of the smog, creating a more sinister, darkly romantic atmosphere than a traditional true-crime book. The main weaknesses in Dawson's debut concern the endings of the two primary narrative threads. In the case of the smog, the author effectively shows how the government's too-little, too-late solutions to keep the deadly event from repeating itself were completely unsatisfactory, but she doesn't go deep enough into how woefully inadequate they proved to be. Regarding Christie, in an anticlimactic conclusion, he confessed and was hanged seemingly because he decided he didn't feel like hiding the bodies anymore. Dawson could hardly have embellished Christie's story, but as Christmas 1953 approached, doctors were concerned about the solutions offered by the British government, and some follow-up there would have been welcome. Despite a few minor flaws, readers will remain hooked on this compelling story and will eagerly await Dawson's next book.

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October 1, 2017
Journalist Dawson writes the parallel, shocking histories of the suffocating smog that menaced London, ultimately killing thousands, in December 1952, and a serial killer's salacious murders and trial the following year. Dawson depicts a London eerily primed for disaster, the overcrowded city still trying to right itself after the two world wars and well accustomed to presumably nonthreatening bouts of intense fog. But in 1952, weather conditions, coal and diesel pollution, and the domestic use of cheap, unrationed, filthy-burning coal dust called nutty slack combined to be much worseand deadlierthan Londoners' average peasouper. Meanwhile, in Notting Hill, the neighborhood then synonymous with tenements and crime, John Christie was preparing to add more strangled women to the collection hidden on his property. Focusing on the powerful press' response to both killers and offering food for thought on what constitutes crime, responsibility, and progress, Dawson delves into heated parliamentary debates between Churchill's Conservative cabinet and Laborite agitators; first-person accounts from doctors, policemen, and other smog survivors; court records; and Christie's own, jaw-dropping account of his murders.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

Starred review from September 15, 2017

Two events occurred in London in the early 1950s that would change the law. The first became known as the Great Smog: a fog that enveloped London in 1952 with poisonous air that seeped into every nook and cranny of the city. Even though London was renowned for its "pea-soup" fog, the Great Smog was extreme, caused by the smoke of over a million coal fires combining with thick fog that lingered for days. Killing over 12,000 people, the tragedy led to clean air legislation. The second event eventually led to the abolition of capital punishment. Dawson (journalism, Univ. of Texas at Austin) tells of how in 1950, Timothy Evans was convicted and hanged for the murder of his wife and daughter. In 1953, John Reginald Christie, Evans's neighbor and a serial murderer who took the lives of at least seven women, was finally apprehended. Christie's conviction cast doubt on Evans's execution, as many wondered if Christie was the actual killer. This doubt eventually contributed to legislation suspending the death penalty in 1965. VERDICT Tendrils of sickening fog creep everywhere in this book, and terror lurks in the shadows. Dawson skillfully weaves these two events into a substantial narrative that will appeal to all types of readers.--Penelope J.M. Klein, Fayetteville, NY

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