Book Review: The Wigwam Murder (M J Trow, Constable 1994)

This is a fascinating book about a very sad case, the brutal murder of Joan Perl Wolfe, a confused and vulnerable 19 year old drifter from Royal Tunbridge Wells. The chief suspect was a 28-year-old Canadian mestis, August Sangret. He was subsequently hanged (at Wandsworth Prison, south London).

M J Trow also wrote Let Him Have It, the story of Derek Bentley and his wrongful execution for the murder of a policeman on top of a warehouse in Croydon, back in about 1952. This book is just as good.

Trow sets the atmosphere well, with descriptions of Hankley Common and its nearbly towns and villages, such as Thursley, Witley, Weybridge, Guildford and so on. At the time of the terrible murder, 1942, the entire areas was awash with servicemen, mainly Canadians and Americans, but with a few British, too (Aldershot, the home of the British army, is nearby). I have a 1959 Ordnance Survey map of the area, 1:25,000 and it shows in fine detail the entire area (I bought it because I partly grew up in Sunningdale and Bagshot, just about 3 miles to the north).

Joan Wolfe was from Tunbridge Wells, in particular Goods Station Road. I grew up here, too, so the book in particularly interesting to me. However, Trow didn't apparantly visit Tunbridge Wells for this book so there is little description, other than that 'everyone knew everyone else'. That is a complete load of rubbish, of course, in a town of 42,000 people.