Book description
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 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.
