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Forty Years of Murder: An Autobiography
'Find that whip and you've found your man.' Keith Simpson told the police, pointing to the diamond-pattern weave of the lash marks on the savagely mutilated body of Margery Gardner. The police found the whip in an attache case left in a railway cloakroom by Neville George Cleverly Heath.
Another notorious killer, John George Haigh, boasted that the murder of Mrs Durand-Deac ...more
Another notorious killer, John George Haigh, boasted that the murder of Mrs Durand-Deac ...more
Paperback
,
400 pages
Published
April 3rd 1980
by HarperCollins
(first published 1978)
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Community Reviews
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This is one of the best true crime bios I've ever read - probably because of the eminence of Keith Simpson, and because it was written back before forensics was flavour of the decade :)
Professor Keith Simpson was the first Professor of Forensic Medicine at Guy's hospital in London, and began his career as a forensic pathologist in the 1930s and 40s. He worked on countless high-profile murder cases for the Home Office and Scotland Yard, involving criminals who have now become infamous, such as the Kray twins and Lord Lucan.
By far the most fascinating aspect of this book is the detail about the history of forensic medicine. Anybody who reads a lot of crime fiction or watches CSI ...more
By far the most fascinating aspect of this book is the detail about the history of forensic medicine. Anybody who reads a lot of crime fiction or watches CSI ...more
I read this when it was first published. At the time, I was a medical student. The juicy forensic cases and techniques that Simpson describes make good stories and certainly got me more interested in the detective work that is forensic pathology. The reason I withheld the fifth star is because of Simpson's arrogance.
Sep 17, 2011
Danielle
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Lovers of Forensics and murder mystery
Loved this book. It is an autobiography, which is not the type of books I normally read but I could not put it down. This book would not be for everyone as it is quite graphic in the detail of the murders. But the insight on forensic science at that time makes this book so facinating.
I have read this twice a few years ago and have been looking for a copy over the last few years so I can read it again.
I have read this twice a few years ago and have been looking for a copy over the last few years so I can read it again.
I bought this at Waterloo station as a bored 15 year old and it absolutely gripped me. Prof. Simpson had the rather dubious honour of working on many of the most notorious murder cases in British criminal history and this book not only introduced me to the entire genre but inffluenced my subsequent career and I can only thank the man for that.
This was one of my very first bought true murder books and now I have a huge library of them !!! It's very good as it's written by the Home Office pathologist that held the position during some very murderous periods in our history.
Read this years ago and lost my copy, recenty obtained another at a charity function
The cases were interesting, he came across as a mysogynist.
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