This is an account of the real life story of two ten-year-old boys who abducted and killed a younger kid while they were running an errand.

A horrifying tale, yet the author treats the subject with sensitivity and does not sensationalize the murder.

This book deserves to travel.

Going to the winner/decoy of the Non-Fiction Sweeps.

Thank you for sharing this book, mcsar. I think I've heard of this case, which is definitely a mind-staggering true story. TBR.

Whoa, that was a harrowing read. I'm glad the writer decided to attach the extra chapter with his own thoughts, mainly because while reading my mind kept returning to how the "sleep of reason" alluded to in the title had so far only been connected to the passage from Rousseau that precedes the book and refers to young children supposedly not having developed independent thought yet. I couldn't help thinking about these boys and their behaviour being a product of a whole complex vicious circle of long-term unemployment, financial instability, domestic violence, etc. And moreover, how the "sleep of reason" - which "produces monsters" - is possibly the state that the government is in (and had been for a while, cf. Thatcherism and Smith's list of similar crimes perpetrated in the Victorian era, which implies connections on the basis of how the working class is being treated). In my view, the system's failure to understand and/or provide for actual people, especially working class individuals, is at the heart of this vicious circle. The backstories of the two families (and the implications for many more in similar circumstances) were, for me, a much more harrowing reading experience than the murder itself - which is never really described (and which gives me reason to believe that the details of what really happened were never brought up, even afterwards).
I admit I had a brief look at the Wikipedia entry of this case after finishing the book, and I was really shocked at some of the later developments. It seems that Smith's assumptions in his final chapter (which he repeatedly stated couldn't be proven) might not have been very far from the truth. But again: from the outside, these things cannot be understood - and even the people involved may not have much insight themselves. I can only say that John Major's 1993 declaration that "we must condemn a little more, and understand a little less" (p. 2) is cruel and counterproductive and puts British politics in an even worse light.

Thank you for sharing this book, mcsar. It has definitely given me much food for thought. Now it can travel on.

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