CRIMES THROUGH TIME

A call for young crime fans to spot misdeeds as they happen on the streets of great cities of the past.

In a nifty premise marred by overly cautious execution, McCormick invites readers to imagine themselves as visitors to 11 urban locales worldwide, from 18th-century BCE Babylon to seventh-century CE Chang’an under Empress Wu Zetian and the 1851 “Wild West” town of Sacramento. For each, she describes select crimes, policing and jurisprudence practices, and typical punishments—frequently maiming or death, sometimes in gruesomely particular ways—and then delivers a challenge to spot those crimes being committed in a populous street scene. Details of dress and locale appear accurate, or at least evocative, in these images. Unfortunately, Otero has taken such a safe, unimaginative route for his depictions that most of the misfeasance supposedly on display in the improbably clean streets and markets has to be indicated in dialogue balloons or explained later: “Hiccup!!” “Disgraceful! She’s a priestess!” “The Pharaoh must die!” “But how?” “Didn’t I see you selling figs outside Athens?” “Who me? Never!” For all the author’s frequent references to violence there is none to be seen; a Mesopotamian surgeon’s “Whooops!” and a murder victim, likewise bloodless, in Mansa Musa’s Timbuktu are the only corpses anywhere, and trials and punishments all occur offstage.

Commendable for topic and scope, but too sanitized to accept as reliable history.