The brutal, hedonistic, criminalty of London's gang land has been graphically documented in many forums over many eras.
The overstylised cinematic exemplar came in The Gangs of London.
Then came the flamboyancy of the Kray Brothers, documented in quasi biographical format in the printed word.
The Great Train Robbery has shared weight in both book and film portrayal as has the Graff diamond heist and the Hatton Garden safe deposit burglary.
Michael Emmett's Sins of Fathers travels the same dark corridors of lawlessness but disappoints in content and presentation and has little to offer the bibliography of Britain's criminal historical pile.
The work is attributed to Emmett and Harriet Compston as a co-author. But it is obvious that Compston is the compiler of a staccato-like commentary by the former criminal turned god-fearer.
It is disjointed in its episodic style, of loose anecdotes with confusing time and story lines.
Emmett puzzles in his attempt to portray his criminal deviance as the result of childhood sexual abuse.
He offers little other than a brief observation of a childminder's assault on him as a six-year-old and then alludes to this as the raison d'etre for his misdemeanors.
He lived in a criminal environment, was subsumed into his cauldron of criminalty by his own life choices and wallowed in the hedonistic lifestyle it offered.
And then along came God.
If there is anything that elevates this book from a drudge is the conviction Emmett shows as he lets slip the bonds of crime and sordid indulgence and finds some dignity and compassion
in his religious conversion.
The overstylised cinematic exemplar came in The Gangs of London.
Then came the flamboyancy of the Kray Brothers, documented in quasi biographical format in the printed word.
The Great Train Robbery has shared weight in both book and film portrayal as has the Graff diamond heist and the Hatton Garden safe deposit burglary.
Michael Emmett's Sins of Fathers travels the same dark corridors of lawlessness but disappoints in content and presentation and has little to offer the bibliography of Britain's criminal historical pile.
The work is attributed to Emmett and Harriet Compston as a co-author. But it is obvious that Compston is the compiler of a staccato-like commentary by the former criminal turned god-fearer.
It is disjointed in its episodic style, of loose anecdotes with confusing time and story lines.
Emmett puzzles in his attempt to portray his criminal deviance as the result of childhood sexual abuse.
He offers little other than a brief observation of a childminder's assault on him as a six-year-old and then alludes to this as the raison d'etre for his misdemeanors.
He lived in a criminal environment, was subsumed into his cauldron of criminalty by his own life choices and wallowed in the hedonistic lifestyle it offered.
And then along came God.
If there is anything that elevates this book from a drudge is the conviction Emmett shows as he lets slip the bonds of crime and sordid indulgence and finds some dignity and compassion
in his religious conversion.