How the tabloid press turned three evil serial killers into celebrities

Frenzy!

Three notorious serial killers. The press out of control. Police with their hands in the till.  Judges and judiciary more concerned about private clubs and public image than the law.  Sounds like a thriller?  It is and it's all true.

It serves as a brilliant joint biography of three serial killers, although four people here get hanged for the relevant deaths, pointing out all the similarities, differences, and noting just how close the cases were at times, geographically as well as historically. The style of writing Root uses is very compelling – I certainly found myself having a very late dinner the evening I started this book...Which brings me to why I did like this book – to repeat, for the friendly yet authoritative writing, and the exactly correct level of detail and insight into the murders, their victims of course, and the culprits. And now, having read this as avidly as any decent true crime book, I know a lot more about the interesting and very bizarre details behind those news headlines of old.

Neil Root was born in London in 1971. He is a graduate of the MA in Creative Writing at the University of Manchester. As well as being a writer, he is a lecturer and teacher in English Literature and Language. He has worked abroad in several countries. He has a special interest in true crime, psychology and history, and has read and researched widely on these subjects. He lives in London.

Murder has transfixed the popular press for centuries. But it was only in the second half of the twentieth century that murder began saturating front pages and making these monsters what we today recognise as modern celebrities. 
 
It was three serial killers, caught and executed in the few years after the end of the Second World War, who precipitated a level of public furore never seen before. Neville Heath, a 'charming' sadist who killed two women; John George Haigh, the Acid Bath Killer who killed between six and nine men and women; and John Christie, the ineffectual necrophile, who killed between six and eight women. The modern news coverage finds its roots with these three men whom the crime historian Donald Thomas called the 'Postwar Psychopaths'. Their crimes were the first to generate a tabloid frenzy the like of which we see all around us today. It was not only the murderers who captured the public's imagination. It was the detectives who hunted them down, the judiciary who tried them, and the man who executed them, the legendary hangman Albert Pierrepoint. 
 
This book tells the stories of these three infamous serial killers against the backdrop of the tabloid frenzy that surrounded them.

Neil Root

The Disappearance of Claudia Lawrence and Her Father's Desperate Search for the Truth

The last time that anyone heard from 35-year-old Claudia Lawrence, a chef at the University of York, was when she sent a text message to a friend on 18 March 2009 at 8.23 p.m. She has never been heard from or seen again, and her disappearance is a mystery that endures to this day. 
 
What happened to Claudia that early spring evening – or was it early the following morning on her way to work? There had been nothing abnormal about her behaviour before she vanished, and there were no signs of a struggle at her home. A Crimewatch reconstruction has been broadcast, and the police investigation into the case has cost more than £750,000. Dozens of interviews have thrown up numerous leads, but there are no concrete clues. 
 
With extensive access to her family and friends, in Gone, Neil Root assesses the facts and theories and asks: where is Claudia?

Neil Root

Books by Neil Root

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