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For the undue emphasis on Joseph Barss and his family, just take a look at the name Barss in the index of the book, compared with, say, the number of entries under Inquiry. The book shouldn't be about Barss, but Bacon manages to drag him in at the drop of the proverbial hat, and spends whole chapters on him. I'm sure Joseph Barss was a decent man and did a lot of good work as a doctor, but his life and times are not supposed to be the subject of this book.
Just two examples of Bacon's crass approach to the whole thing:
1. In his lead-up to the terrible event itself, describing one of the families that was to be affected, he wrote "With fourteen kids, the milking cow in the backyard wasn't for show-and-tell". I don't know whether he thought he was being funny in saying this, but it jars badly.
2. In one of his later chapters devoted to the exploits of Joseph Barss, we are told: "He also sang in the First Congregational Church under the leadership of Lloyd C Douglas, who would go on to write The Robe, which sold 2 million copies and became a movie starring Richard Burton.
When reading about the Halifax explosion, I really needed to know that fascinating piece of information!
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