Dark deeds and brutal Black Country murders feature in new book (From Stourbridge News)

Dark deeds and brutal Black Country murders feature in new book

10:00am Friday 25th January 2013 in Local

GRISLY goings on in the Black Country are featured in a new book of spine-tingling tales about the region's past.

Crime writer Nicola Sly's new book A Grim Almanac of the Black Country catalogues a host of dark deeds, brutal murders and strange happenings that have taken place across the borough and beyond over the last 165 years.

The new book, which explores the area's dark past, comprises 366 chilling and dramatic tales of explosions, murders, disasters, tragic deaths and bizarre accidents.

Illustrated with photographs and etchings - the compendium of gruesome history tales includes that of two labourers who were buried in molten glass in 1893 at Wordsley's Red House Glass Cone.

It also features the strange case from 1860 of a four-year-old Stourbridge girl who burned to death after her mother left her alone in the house just months after another child in the family suffered a similar fate.

And the tragic 1845 tale of a Hagley mother who suffered the loss of two of her three daughters from mercury poisoning after they were prescribed ointment for ringworm. A chemist from Stourbridge was tried for manslaughter over the first child's death but he was acquitted and charges relating to the girl's twin sister were later dropped.

Also highlighted are famous cases like Dunsley murder of 1812 which saw wealth Kinver farmer Benjamin Robbins shot by gunman William Howe who was later executed in Stafford and his body hanged at Whittington Common; and the unsolved Hagley mystery of 'Who Put Bella in the wych elm?' - which was sparked after four teenagers discovered the skeletal remains of a woman in Hagley Wood in 1943.

The book is one of more than 20 true crime titles penned by Cornwall-based author Nicola Sly, author of Murder by Poison: A Casebook of Historic British Murders.

Priced £14.99, A Grim Almanac of the Black Country is available from High Street and online book sellers such as Amazon or direct the publishers - www.thehistorypress.co.uk