All articles in True Crime
20th June, 2025 in History, Society & Culture, True Crime
Ask the author: Neil Root on The Cleveland Street Scandal
Seasoned journalist, acclaimed author, and true crime historian, Neil Root, delves into one of Victorian society’s most explosive scandals – The Cleveland Street Scandal. A precursor to the prosecution of Oscar Wilde, this book exposes deep-rooted corruption within the Victorian…
25th November, 2024 in True Crime
Christmas is the cruellest time for murder. But why is it so common at the sweetest moment in the year?
Simon Farquhar’s new book, A Deafening Silence: Forgotten British Murders, led him down dark roads as he trudged the wintry countryside trying to understand forgotten tragedies and talking to those whose lives had been affected by them. Here he reflects on why he wanted to tell t…
18th November, 2024 in True Crime
A knockout punch from the Polish Mafia
In November 1999 the Polish boxer Andrzej Gołota fought Michael Grant in Atlantic City before an audience of fight fans, celebrities, and expat Poles. In the audience was Donald Trump, then a real estate mogul with an odd haircut and political ambitions, but a few rows behind and…
30th September, 2024 in True Crime
Introducing a new prime suspect as the Thames Torso Killer
Before Jack the Ripper, another monster prowled the waterways of Victorian London. The Thames Torso Killer has always lurked in the Ripper’s shadow, despite the fact he murdered and dismembered at least four people over two years. He started to kill in 1887, over a year before th…
31st July, 2024 in True Crime
Muriel McKay: A Conclusion
Fifty-four years after the murder of Muriel McKay, a tragedy has again become a media sensation. A supposed confession by her surviving killer, Nizamodeen Hosein, has resulted in one final police search of Rooks Farm in Hertfordshire, once the home of the Hosein brothers. The sea…
1st August, 2023 in True Crime
The crime of the Century: The truth behind the Great Train Robbery
8 August 2023, and the 60th anniversary of the crime that shocked the nation: the Great Train Robbery. Gradually the truth emerges. Judging by press accounts, the robbers were a kind of ‘Robin Hood’ gang. The first arrest took place less than 48 after the crime was committed. By…
25th July, 2023 in True Crime, Women in History
Walking you through ‘Private Inquiries’: The secret history of female sleuths
The female private detective has been a staple of popular culture for over 150 years. But what about the real-life women behind the fictional tales? Women like Victorian sleuth Antonia Moser, Annette Kerner, the ‘Mrs Sherlock Holmes’ of Baker Street, and Kate Easton, ‘London’s Le…
12th July, 2023 in Biography & Memoir, Military, True Crime
Why did the United States allow the worst war criminal into America?
Until I began researching the story of the teenager who risked his life to bring the ‘Butcher of the Balkans’ to justice, I knew little of the atrocities committed in the Nazi puppet state of Croatia during the Second World War. I learned that I am far from alone. Most people I s…
28th April, 2023 in True Crime, Women in History
Ask the author: Caitlin Davies on Queens of the Underworld – A history of female crooks
Author Caitlin Davies is a novelist, non-fiction writer, award-winning journalist and teacher. She is the author of six novels, six non-fiction books, and several short stories. Queens of the Underworld her history of female crooks, has recently been released in paperback. What i…
21st April, 2023 in True Crime
The murders that ended the Hawkhurst Gang
In 1740s Britain, a pair of murders in Sussex would captivate the public imagination. Acts so brutal, they would destroy Britain’s most dangerous smuggling gang and drive a government purge of the Sussex smuggling community: the murders of customs officer William Galley and shoem…
13th April, 2023 in History, True Crime
Hawkhurst: The story of smuggling in the 18th Century
In his book Hawkhurst: Murder, Corruption, and Britain’s Most Notorious Smuggling Gang author Joseph Dragovich covers a fascinating era that is underrepresented in non-fiction historical true crime… 18 December 1744 John Bolton sat in the King’s Head Inn in Shoreham in Kent. Wi…
23rd February, 2023 in History, Society & Culture, True Crime
How a story of Ethiopian plunder started in a Scottish cupboard
My book was born on a cold winter afternoon when a train pulled into Edinburgh’s Waverley Station. Out walked a group of black-robed priests, led by the archbishop of the ancient Ethiopian city of Axum. Close behind came diplomats, officials, a delegation of Rastafarians from the…