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During this period there was a lull in the work of Manchester’s most notorious (indeed only) serial killer, so I had more spare time on my hands than usual. I busied myself by fulfilling a long-held ambition. I wrote a true-crime book along the lines of “In Cold Blood”, by Truman Capote. It was called The Skull Crusher Murders, and the inside flap of the dust cover assured readers that it provided the hidden story behind the headlines.
This was a lie, of course. It did nothing of the sort.
It is only now that I am giving you the hidden story.
What the book did do was provide readers with a greater insight into the murders than my columns in the Manchester Daily News had done.
I achieved an “astonishing immediacy” with my prose (according to the Bolton News), and conveyed “all the t
