This is more a history of the axe than it is a history of axe murder. There are certainly plenty of bloody deaths, but the book is more interested in the ramifications of using an axe than the deaths themselves. It's a wide-ranging book, starting with an early prehistoric skull, moving through ancient Egyptians and the Tudor court and Lizzie Borden, but because what is known about each situation varies greatly, it feels scattered. It also varies significantly in tone (including personal asides that sometimes felt inappropriate, but also rather dry and scholarly passages). I found it interesting, but it doesn't feel like a completely finished book.

Thanks to the author, the publisher, and Netgalley for a free earc in exchange for an honest review.

WHACK JOB: a history of axe murder

by Rachel Mccarthy James


Maybe not everybody gets as excited about axe murderers as I do.

Except possibly other crime writers, or true crime readers. And some historians.

But let me tell you, this little book has axe murders going way back into pre-history, including a fascinating digression on how to shape a hand axe for the best killing edge. That alone is worth the price of admission.

The book then moves forward to/through recorded history: axe killings and forensic examinations of ancient Egypt, 1200 BCE in China, a Norse record of a mass killing in North America, the infamous Lizzie Borden murder, then on to the last, possibly darkest one a few years later. By the 1960s most homes had central heating and axes were less available. Methods for convenient or impulse murder shifted to more common household items.

This book is well written, in a breezy narrative style that yet stays quite focused and relays information in an anecdotal style that is yet very historically accurate. Highly recommended for fans of true crime and those with a generous range of historical lore already under their bonnets to fill in the cultural backgrounds behind the various deeds.

#WhackJob #axe #weapons #murder #history #historicalmurder #Norse #Vikings #LizzieBorden #weaponshistory #prehistory #prehistorical #handaxe #flintknapping #bronze #edgedweapons #killing #homicide #Macmillan
@rmccarthyjames

Special thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for allowing me an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Whack Job is an all encompassing book about the history and "life" of the axe. Rachel McCarthy James starts this story from the very veryyyyy beginning of history all the way to present day. What was the axe to early people? What has it become as times have changed? A tool that was once essential and used everywhere is now almost archaic due to how technology has phased it out. Each chapter tells a unique story through history chronologically about the axe to show its importance at each "stage" of its life. From essential tool to murder weapon, this book discusses it.

I am quite fond of books that delve into one object's story throughout human history and I did enjoy this look at the axe. McCarthy James does an incredible job of picking stories that piece together the full picture of the axe and its historical importance. As a whole the writing is scholarly with a few jokes spilt in, but a few areas could have been polished a little further. The writing at times became dry and a bit of a slog to get through; some chapters I definitely enjoyed more than others. Some of the facts for the more ancient stories are a little off, but I think I caught them because I studied ancient history and a regular person would not notice them. These minor infractions are not big enough to ruin the story as a whole, but the equivalent of someone watching a period piece and noticing a Starbuck's coffee cup...inconsequential to the general story, but noticeable if caught.

If you're looking for a deep dive into the history of the axe, one of the most important tools created by humans, then this is the book for you! It is amazing how one tool has been with us humans through our whole journey, and McCarthy James does an excellent job piecing that together.

Whack Job, while it is a history of axe murder, delves into the very origins of man, early tools, archeology, mummification, sociology, and more. Rather than focusing solely on gruesome murders, each story in the book gives an explanation of a specific kind of axe, the technology required to create the axe and how it functioned as a cultural symbol. For example, a man with an axe in his hand was the Egyptian hieroglyphic for "enemy."

The earliest stone tools appeared around 3 million years ago, with axes making an appearance in Kenya around 1.6 million years ago. Creating an axe by sharpening a rock was hard work, a status symbol that the creator was strong and diligent and had a tool that upped their chances of survival. The first murder - "the earliest evidence of lethal interpersonal violence in the hominin fossil record" was approximately 430,000 years ago and involved an axe. An axe as an instrument of war was used to slice the head off a kneeling subjugated Theban king; a formidable Zi dynasty queen was buried with her battle axes; in the reign of Henry VIII, beheading with an axe was much more merciful than the other horrid alternatives.

And in more modern times, the author extensively talks about the Lizzie Borden case, as well as the Taliesin murders in Spring Green, WI, the Candy Montgomery / Betty Gore case and more. I thought the true crime aspect of the book was well-done, but having all the background and history in which axes, hatchets and tomahawks have figured prominently really took this book to the next level of me. It truly made my nerdy history-loving heart sing! 5 stars.

Imagine drunk history night with the friends and everyone needs to make a slideshow on a their subject as well as a related cocktail. You’ve got that one friend that is kinda quiet, but she’s got a cocktail in her and all of a sudden she apparently knows everything there is to know about axes? You wouldn’t think she could talk about axes for a while, but hey she did and it was actually awesome. Her enthusiasm has drawn everyone in, her tidbits are quirky, her own commentary is like funny and snarky and fun.

This is what reading this book felt like to me. I can’t remember the last book I read in which the writer actually felt like speaking to a friend, she’s done exactly that.

You wouldn’t think there’s a lot to talk about, let alone read about. Apparently there is. And apparently it’s all captivating.

I wish I finished this book a week early so I could’ve given it the review it deserves, certainly something better than this (like more than an IG story).

Anyway, this is no hatchet job. Excellent book. Lots of fun.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7545811292

This is a very unique take on a topic most people might not think about. Axe murder has become something of a punchline in the past 50 years, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not still a deadly serious situation.

The author is very clearly knowledgeable and interested in the subject matter. It could very easily read like a textbook, going into long-winded details about the evolution of the axe and its role in the zeitgeist - but it doesn’t. Instead, it gives a linear timeline of ax murder throughout history, specifically Western history, giving context about the evolution of axe use to explain why that axe was used at that point in time.

I really enjoyed this - it’s very approachable and casual considering the topic. I think this might be a good book for anyone interested in history and true crime, especially history centered around one common concept.

Thank you to NetGalley, Rachel McCarthy James, and St. Martin’s Press for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book traces the changing role of the axe in history and how that affected its use as a murder weapon of choice. It details some specific axe murders, including, among others, the beheadings ordered by King Henry VIII and the Lizzie Borden case, as well as some perhaps lesser-known axe murders. Although the book is interesting, it can feel a bit cut and dried at times. Reading it is a kind of morbid guilty pleasure that is probably best enjoyed by those fascinated by true crime.

While singular in focus, Whack Job: A History of Axe Murder reads less like a cohesive history and more like a compendium of notable, infamous or historically important deaths by axe. As such, chapters can differ in length and breadth, many of them having the true crime pacing of all the gruesome details.

Rachel McCarthy James co-wrote The Man from the Train: The Solving of a Century-Old Serial Killer and Whack Job feels like a natural expansion from that books singular focus on one axe-murderer. For each of the dozen featured cases, James supplies the background of the key figures, the murder(s) and some social and economic context. Each chapter then ends with a sort of coda about a specific axe that foreshadows the next chapter. Of course there is a section on Henry the VIII and Lizze Borden.

It's a breezy popular history of murder from proto-humanity to the near present, but lacking in depth.

Recommended(?) to readers of true crime, micro-histories or author's trying to offset the seriousness of the topic with humor and sarcasm.

Whack Job: A History of Axe Murder by Rachel McCarthy James (book cover is in image) takes the reader through the history of axe murders from prehistoric times to the present day. Written a natural language, easy for a layperson for me to understand, this account keeps the reader engaged throughout.

I had the good fortune of being able to review the eBook and the audiobooks simultaneously and found it easy to navigate easily between the two, thanks to the wonderful narration provided by Jennifer Pickens. I would definitely recommend this for those who love to read about true crime for a great account of the evolution of the axe as a tool to a murder weapon.

Thank you, Macmillan Audio and St. Martin’s Press, for the opportunity to listen to this ALC and read this ARC. All opinions are my own.

Audiobook and eBook Rating: 5 Stars
Audio Release/Pub Date: May 13 2025

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Whack Job by Rachel McCarthy James is an interesting book. True to its description, it covers a wide range of historical time, from prehistoric violence, to war and executions, to newspaper headlines and popular culture. It seems there has always been an axe in one form or another, with one use or another. Author James takes us from the earliest known use to the role the axe plays today.

Whack Job seems very well-researched, scientific, detailed and occasionally a little dry, but also tongue-in-cheek, titillating, scandalous and very modern.

Whack Job grabs your interest but also feels like a grab bag at time. It starts with straight history but not a coherent history beginning to end, although this seems to be the author’s intention since in her author notes she describes it as “this weird niche project that wasn’t true crime but wasn’t traditional history.” The tone and pace of the book change throughout. It’s very anecdotal but sections also feel like a term paper, a textbook, a 10-best list or the latest headline.

Whack Job was captivating, informative and fun to read. I received an advance copy from St. Martin’s Press via NetGalley. I voluntarily leave this review; all opinions are my own.

Whack Job is a somewhat misleading history of axe murders. While the book is interesting and well-written, I took issue with the broad scope and ambiguous definition of axe murder. The book includes a history of the axe as a tool and status symbol, then discussing its use in warfare, executions, politics, and, eventually, what I actually expected to be discussed as axe murder. Criminology generally agrees that not all types of killing constitute murder—generally some sort of extralegality is involved. I think this book would work better as an entry in the Object Lessons series to account for wide range of discussed topics. As it was, it was a bit of a slog, waiting until the last third of the book for the examples I actually expected to be covered.

I have probably spent as much time with the James family's writing as anyone not actually in the James family, with good reason and zero regrets, so to describe me as bouncing-in-my-seat impatient for Rachel McCarthy James's Whack Job: A History of Axe Murder is to understate the case rather dramatically.

Maybe that anticipation explains why the book took a while to grow on me; maybe my expectations got in the way of seeing the book I was reading, versus some theoretical book I had in mind going in.

Or maybe it's that Whack Job needed a stronger, or different, organizing principle.

Now, as framed and written, it's quite good. Whack Job begins hundreds of thousands of years ago, and proceeds through a dozen different (usually) notorious axe murders, winding up in its epilogue at a double killing from 2019. It's not trying for encyclopedic coverage; James has picked the cases that let her turn onto a two-lane narrative blacktop, and think about how the case reflects the time and society in which it occurred.

But that's…not A History of Axe Murder, exactly, and it took me a few chapters to acclimate to what I think James is really trying to do. What she's really trying to do – use Freydis and Lizzie Borden as springboards to contemplating the constraints of femininity throughout history; use the axes themselves to talk about contemporary "coverage" of events – works fine. A title like "aXe Marks The Spot: What 13 Murders Tell Us About The Times In Which" blah blah blah fishcakes might have done a better job structuring the book and readers' expectations for it.

A title like that is almost parodically unwieldy, however, and I know well the struggle to get a project sold, write the thing you really want to write, and reverse-engineer as much overlap as possible to satisfy the marketing department – sometimes, they make the tin first, and what's inside is a bit different.

As a result, what's inside Whack Job can feel unfocused at times, nervous about meeting the obligations of the pitch. The first chapter, on the ancient Cranium 17, is too long and can read like a compulsory exercise; the chapter on the demises of various and sundry wives and associates of Henry VIII is interesting and appropriately snarky, but the connection to the axe is a bit forced.

In a handful of places, James sort of gestures at other, more pertinent cases that might have worked better in the foreground than as asides. There's sometimes the sense that James doesn't completely trust her own instinct as to where the engine of a given case or chapter is.

When she does, though, Whack Job cooks, in sections on replacement-level pharaohs; a young George Washington's diplomatic bungling, and the grisly crisis (and historical whitewashing of same) that ensued; and the functioning of state executions as theater. The description of the Jessica Biel iteration of the Betty Gore/Candy Montgomery case as an "ashtray-gross version of the late seventies" is right on, and while the Lizzie Borden chapter could have used another draft to de-jitter it a little, James gets a lot of new-to-me intel into it – and evokes brilliantly the "but then…except, wait" quality of that case that drives interest in it to this day.

On balance, Whack Job is worth a look: companionably readable, extensively researched, lots of fun rabbit holes in the biblio. It may have needed to go a little more confidently in either an actual-encyclopedic direction, with conversational write-ups about a given case as the mood struck James; or a "here's what struck me about each of these axe murders, which may or may not center on the murders each time, but it's my book, so get in, nerds" direction.

It didn't, but what it does do is singular. Mary Roach blurbed the book, and it does have Roach-y elements, but Whack Job has a more curious and colloquial, "not that you asked about it specifically but: check this shit out" way about it that, at its best, made me look forward to the next research trip James takes us on.

Whack Job A History of Axe Murder by Rachel McCarthy James was received directly from the publisher and I chose to review. Axes, used for chopping wood, chopping trees, chopping necks, everyone has an axe story they at least heard from others. This book goes into great detail with axe related stories from it being a tool to it being a weapon, to it being a handy thing to have around your house nowadays. From Henry the 8th and beheadings, the real story of George Washington and the cherry tree and the real story of an unknown mass murder involving a woman named Lizzie. Whatever your take, this book is a fast and entertaining read.

I’ll likely come back to this book, but I’m currently marking this as DNF at 16%. I’m truly struggling with this book which I was really looking forward to reading.

Coming from a city with a recently solved cold case axe murder, I was very excited to read this. I expected it to be filled with stories of murders, how they changed through the years and the lore of the axe murderer. That, unfortunately, was not this book. Instead, it took a hard left turn away from its description early. It discussed deaths by axes and anything slightly related to one, and I use deaths intentionally. There are discussions of state sanctioned executions, wartime killings and even deaths from an unknown blunt force trauma. Overall, this was not aimed at axe murders.

Furthermore, the writing ebbed from a studious tone to immature jokes and jabs too often for me to take seriously. It almost felt like the author’s opinions were unable to be formed through anything but forced humor.

I’m disappointed with this book as a whole, but I will say at least the history was interesting. I would recommend if this interests you, though proceed with caution that the description is inaccurate.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC copy of this book.

I'm not a massive reader of true crime books, but the description of "Whack Job: A History of Axe Murder" sounded unusual, and more my style. It sounded like I'd be reading a book exploring our relationship with the axe through time, maybe comparing it with our relationship to other potentially murderous tools (and really, aren't they all?) and why the axe won when a weapon was reached for. The book's description really sold me.

The book itself didn't match the description and I ended up highly disappointed. Over 12 chapters author Rachel McCarthy James never really gives us her definition of an "axe murder" which meant that I disagreed with her on probably the first 8 or so chapters. People died, but often in war where axes were weapons, or state executions where axes were used (think Henry VIII). Are those murders? The axes are symbolic of power in several of these cases, which was interesting, but not related to murder in my opinion.

The tone and focus of "Whack Job" was also all over the place. Sometimes dry and scholarly, sometimes humorous or flippant. The early chapters in particular were more a general history where if you didn't pay attention you could miss the death-by-maybe-axe completely. I'm particularly thinking of Ch 1 here. I've worked in a museum with an amazing collection of hand axes and they deserve to be talked about and clearly James wanted to talk about the early weapons/tools hand axes were. But since the "murder" is pretty vague in Ch 1, perhaps talking about the development of axes from stone tools on might have found a more impactful place in an introduction? Or call the book something like "The History of the World in 12 Axes", which would warn the reader that they are going to get a lot of general history of ancient Egypt, China, Greece, etc. and at some point axes will wander in. The book takes a turn around Ch 9 and focuses on specific killings done with an axe in the 20th century, although you still get more set-up than I at least felt was needed.

Overall, not a book I'd recommend. Maybe if you're a serious fan of axes you'll get something out of this book, but generally I found the book not well written, prone to wandering, and seriously lacking in focus. Don't be fooled by the interesting book description- the pages don't remember that's what they were supposed to be focusing on.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Whack Job by Rachel McCarthy James was somewhat of a disappointment. I expected a gripping dive into axe murders, but the book leans heavily into the old-world history of the axe itself. While the research is thorough, it feels dry and misses the mark for those seeking true crime thrills. It’s more academic than engaging, making it a struggle to get through. Not what I was hoping for.

When offered this book, I thought, "Why not? A book about ax murders could be fun." It is named <i>Whack Job</> after all. So, who's out there besides Lizzie Borden? James does try to go comprehensive--she goes from prehistoric times up through 2019, including stops in Egypt, Viking Greenland, and even the Overlook hotel. While a serious topic, there is an offsetting humor that makes it easy to read and acknowledges that "axe murderer" has its own pop culture absurdity built in at this point in time. Unfortunately, since I was reading an electronic ARC, I didn't have what appeared to be illustrating photos of different kinds of axes. I would have enjoyed tracing the evolution of the axe and seeing the type that went with each vignette. In reference to our most famous axe murderer, James presented some interesting theories about how shaky the case actually was against Borden. It was a relatively short book, and evenly paced with a voice that made you want to keep reading. Not every story was equally compelling, but the fact that she managed to hunt down so many disparate stories and pull them all together comprehensively was pretty impressive.

This book is very well researched, but not my type of book. I did learn a lot about the axe and how axe murder became to be such a huge part of the criminal construct.

Thanks to NetGalley and St Martin’s Press for this advanced reader copy. This is my honest opinion.

4 out of 5 stars

Whack Job: A History of Axe Murder is certainly a history about axes, but I am not convinced it is a history of axe murder; at least not in the traditional sense of the phrase “axe murder.”

Rachel McCarthy James provides a well-thought-out and deeply researched history of the significance of the axe around the world. Her analysis begins with the first known case of axe murder: Cranium 17 from the Spanish archeological site La Sima de los Huesos dated to 430,000 years ago. She then explores Ancient Egypt, Vikings in Greenland, Henry VIII, colonial America, Lizzie Borden, and eventually makes her way to more modern cases. She not only looked at the murders themselves, but also the importance of the axe as a tool or a weapon to the society at the time.

Including Henry VIII in a book about the history of axe murder is a wild choice. In order to write a wide-reaching history of axe murders, McCarthy James had to stretch the meaning of “axe murderer.” Just because the method used to execute people involved an axe does not make a monarch an axe murderer. This is the case for several other deaths discussed in this book. Technically, the deaths were axe murders, but we are going dangerously close to philosophical questions of what makes a murder an axe murder?

One aspect that I really enjoyed from this book was her discussion on the idea of axe murderers and the media. The mention of both The Shining and So I Married an Axe Murderer provided interesting perspectives on modern ideas of the axe murderer. I found her analysis well done an insightful.

While this book did not necessarily cover the history of axe murder, it did showcase the historical importance of the axe and how societies and individuals utilized the tool, whether as a means to survival or the weapon for death. The book is well-written and engaging. Each chapter gave a different perspective on the axe as a tool and weapon, and it is interesting to see how McCarthy James connects the various cases to the history of axe murder.

Whack Job was a fascinating read. I had never thought about axes and their being the cause of someone's death being so connected before reading this book. I loved all the detailed examples throughout history and will check out this author's other published work. I give this book 4/5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and St Martins Press for the opportunity to review Whack Job by Rachel McCarthy James . All opinions are my own