There is a suicide at London Airport, an attempted murder in Kowloon, and a girl had been strangled. Then there is an ocean liner with its passengers under sentence of death. Roger (‘Handsome’) West of the Yard flies out to assist the Sydney Police prevent a madman unleashing destruction on an unprecedented scale.
There is a suicide at London Airport, an attempted murder in Kowloon, and a girl had been strangled. Then there is an ocean liner with its passengers under sentence of death. Roger (‘Handsome’) West of the Yard flies out to assist the Sydney Police prevent a madman unleashing destruction on an unprecedented scale.
Early on the morning of May 6, 1840, the elderly Lord William Russell was found in his London house with his throat so deeply cut that his head was nearly severed. The crime soon had everyone, including Queen Victoria, feverishly speculating about motives and methods. But when the prime suspect claimed to have been inspired by a sensational crime novel, it sent shock waves through literary London and drew both Dickens and Thackeray into the fray. Could a novel really lead someone to kill? In Murder by the Book, Claire Harman blends a riveting true-crime whodunit with a fascinating account of the rise of the popular novel and the early battle for its soul among the most famous writers of the day.
He was a murderer, swindler, bigamist and suspect in the Jack the Ripper killings. Frederick Deeming was also the most hated man in the world. Claiming to be haunted by the ghost of his dead mother, Deeming had spent years roaming the planet under various aliases, preying on the innocent, the gullible and the desperate. But the discovery by Australian police in 1892 of the body of one of his wives in a shallow concrete grave triggered one of the greatest manhunts in history and exposed a further series of grisly murders - those of his first wife and four children - that stunned the Victorian era. The Devil's Work is a gothic journey into the twisted mind of a serial killer, set in the dying years of the 19th century when science and religion had collided and some of the world's most powerful and influential people believed in spirits and an afterlife. It reveals Deeming's crime spree across three continents, raising fresh questions about his role in the Jack the Ripper killings and culminating in his sensational trial where he was defended by a future Australian Prime Minister who believed he could also speak to the dead. Born bad or simply mad? It's time to meet Frederick Deeming, the man known and reviled throughout the United States, England and Australia as the Criminal of the Century.
A VIP mysteriously disappears, and a diamond smuggling ring appears to be operating out of South Africa. Chief Superintendent Roger (‘Handsome’) West of Scotland Yard is sent out to investigate, but is lead into difficult and dangerous situations.
Roger (‘Handsome’) West of Scotland Yard investigates from Chelsea, London to Miami. Sir David Marshall, a diplomat, is seemingly involved in a jealous brawl over a woman, but West believes there is more to the matter than meets the eye. His belief is soon vindicated and he sets off on a trail to find the truth.