3 Review(s)

In 1921 God-fearing, bible-quoting, partially deaf Thomas Thomas was brutally murdered at the branch of Star Stores he managed in Garnant, South Wales. His body was discovered on the morning of Sunday February 13th, his head smashed, his throat cut and with a stab wound to the stomach. Any of the wounds could have killed Thomas. The store safe was bare: over GBP126 was missing, but was this more than a horribly botched robbery? Bizarrely, the murderer had Thomas gagged with cheese, and although he had been stabbed in the body his trousers, shirt and waistcoat were intact. This was beyond the local police force and Scotland Yard was called. DI George Nicholls duly arrived from the big city to identify a number of suspects in the town. Some had a potential motive, some the opportunity to commit the crime, but extensive investigations proved inconclusive and Nicholls returned to London with the case unsolved and Garnant apprehensive. So the identity of the killer died with him and the case consigned to history. Until now. The extensive researches of Steve Adams have finally revealed the killer in Murder at the Star, which is a thorough reconstruction of the murder and the subsequent investigation. This is the story of a terrible crime in an almost archetypal Welsh mining town, a crime symbolic of a turning point in early twentieth century Wales as the coal industry declined and recently assembled townships acknowledged their unknown futures and sought new identities.