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Long ago I remember a tall man with a grey beard who used to walk past us kids as we played football outside our houses. He habitually...

It’s possible you might not have heard of the hockey stick graph. That’s because its appearances have become less and less as time goes...

Revisiting a favourite book can sometimes backfire. For instance, I used to rank Wodehouse’s Laughing Gas amongst my very favourites,...

In January 1993 Jean-Claude Romand slaughtered his entire family: his parents, wife and two children. It was the inevitable – from his...

The slaughter of three generations of the same family is the topic for John Morris’ The Clydach Murders and it’s pretty gruesome stuff....

Patrick Hamilton has been enjoying somewhat of a renaissance in recent years – at least in literary terms, for the man himself died many...

While readers might be aware of the Brit comedy film The Pope Must Die, it’s probably true that most if not all of that film’s fans have...

We hear a lot about - from experts nowadays. Professor such-and-such or Dr Thingy, bristling with the authority their qualifications...

Wallis Simpson aka the Duchess of Windsor – specifically her role in the 1936 abdication of Edward VIII – has always been presented in...

‘The idea really came to me the day I got my new false teeth,’ so declares George Bowling, the anti-hero of George Orwell’s 1939 novel...

Hangover Square is a book I've always meant to read, but until now, have never got round to doing so. Thank heaven I have! For this is...

Everybody knows the story of Lord Lucan, but for those who don’t Dead Lucky recounts the story in its opening chapters. In 1974 the...

What to do about the guest who overstays his or her welcome? Moreover what to do about the guest who stays on for not just a few hours...

The brutal 2006 murder of an octogenarian in one of London’s most fashionable (and expensive) addresses is the topic of Thomas Harding’s...

The 1979 death of British nurse Helen Smith in Jeddah has always been shrouded in mystery. Did the 23-year-old fall from a balcony as per...

Two books for the price of one, that’s the intriguing proposition of Malcolm Bradbury’s To The Hermitage, the author’s final novel...

Amongst the many ways murderers 'do away’ with their victims, poisoning must surely be one of the ghastliest of methods. Convulsions,...

The death of Helen Smith has been shrouded in controversy ever since the 23-year-old nurse allegedly fell from a sixth-floor balcony in...

Got to confess I’m not a fan of sci-fi novels. Movies, maybe – but novels . . . Along with westerns, chick-lit and Fantasy/Magic Realism...

Not for nothing did authors Derek Humphry and David Tindall choose ‘False Messiah’ as the title for their book about the remarkable life...