Unsolved Serial Killers

“​A beautifully written account of a great American tragedy—the unsolved murders of an undetermined number of young women, all by the same serial killer, who got away. The truth is still buried. I couldn’t put it down.”
—John Grisham, #1 New York Times bestselling author

Murders and murderers fascinate us – and perhaps serial killers fascinate us most of all. In the twentieth century the term came to be used to describe murders committed by the same person, often with similar methods. But, as Jonathan Oates demonstrates in this selection of cases from London, this category of crime has existed for centuries, though it may have become more common in modern times. Using police and pathologists’ reports, Home Office and prison files, trial transcripts and lurid accounts in contemporary newspapers, he reconstructs these cases in order to explain how they took place, who the killers were, what motivated them, and how for a while they got away with their crimes. He does not neglect the victims and provides a revealing analysis of the killers, their circumstances and their actions.