Review by Lan Nguyen, Masters of Business in Human Resources Management, University of Technology, Sydney, and Intern, The LEAD Group Inc

William 'Mad Dog' Moxley – one of the last people to be executed in NSW - was hanged at Long Bay Gaol in 1932 for the murders of Dorothy Ruth Denzel and Frank Barnby Wilkinson. The killing and resulting events attracted a great deal of attention of public and major Sydney newspapers. The two themes - fact and fiction - have been tightly interwoven in the book, making this an interesting read, with the Sydney Great Depression captured and the reconstruction of Moxley’s life provided with great dialogue and story-telling.

Returned from World War I and registered as a habitual criminal, Moxley later was shot in the head and was heavily dependent on aspirin tablets to treat the resulting headaches. Moxley did not deny the murders, but claimed he could not recollect what had happened in the killing spree. This and an assessment by Professor Chris Winder, has resulted in an hypothesis about effects of this gunshot wound, with particles of lead in his head, on Moxley’s behaviour. According to Professor Chris Winder, documents supplied by Peter Corris cannot show adequate signs of lead poisoning, but possibly both relatively large particles of ‘high specific gravity and evidently metal’ and ‘finer pieces of little significance’ might contribute lead to the body and produce toxicity (https://lead.org.au/Toxicity_of_lead_from_bullets.pdf).