Inset, from top: hangman James Berry; Robert Ricketts Anderson (Evans
the hangman), left; and Ricketts Anderson, right
Through
the hangman's eyes, the book ultimately asks what it means to end a life.
7.45 am SATURDAY Final call for hanging is given to
the hangmanDundee-born Kidd, who sailed vast tracts of the world's oceans, from the Caribbean to Madagascar, and was said to have tortured prisoners with cutlasses, almost escaped
the hangman when the rope broke but eventually met his doom at the second attempt.
Friedrich Nietzsche wrote in his book, Twilight of the Idols, that there was a certain "metaphysical" nature to
the hangman. He wrote that the condemned was a discrete self who was the independent source of punishment they were about to receive; the noose is merely an instrument to do the bidding of its administrators; and public discourse absolved the agents of the law and vilified the condemned.
The hangman started working as an executioner seven years ago and was trained for the job while serving a 30-year murder sentence - passed down when he was aged only 16 - for murder.
But in the 1960s, the MLJ heroes returned--some, like
the Hangman, now inexplicably as villains--as the Mighty Crusaders.
But, turning away from what might be seen as the more traditional crime fiction genre, Dancing for
the Hangman is a major departure for the writer, who has carved out a name for himself as the creator of Liverpool detective Harry Devlin, before turning his attention to his series of Lake District-based crime novels.
Businessman Paul '
The Hangman' Roper believes he will be European Texas Hold Em No Limits champion by the end of the week.
Back in England, the Year of
the Hangman, 1777, finds the lazy and spoiled 15-year-old Creighton Brown in bad company, drinking and losing money at cards.
At the Water Gate he was met by
the hangman, transferred to
the hangman's cart and tied to the seat, to be taken through the streets to the Tolbooth prison.
