Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths in and Around Wigan is a detailed guide to the town's darker side, exploring, often in gory detail, Wigan's more sinister heritage, by examining accounts of murder and suspicious deaths from the middle ages through to the twentieth century. Victorian Wigan was a town seemingly overflowing with criminals, and some of the most gruesome cases, recounted from the reports taken from the Wigan Observer and Wigan Examiner, occurred in the second half of the nineteenth century. Many of the cases are without notice or provocation. Domestic crime features highly, often involving Wigan's colliers savagely beating their wives to death, and some of the cases remain unsolved. Each of the cases are covered in detail, documenting the crime, the investigation and inquest, and culminates with the eventual court case and punishment.
