It had been Graham Greene's idea to explore tropical West Africa.The map of Liberia was virtually blank, the interior marked 'cannibals'. It was a far cry from the literary London of 1935, and the result of the 350-mile trek was the masterclass in travel writing that is Journey Without Maps. But the gifted author was not travelling alone. His cousin Barbara had, over perhaps a little too much champagne, rashly agreed to go with him. Unbeknown to him, she a...

Contemporary Japanese horror is deeply rooted in the folklore of its culture, with fairy tales-like ghost stories embedded deeply into the social, cultural, and religious fabric. Ever since the emergence of the J-horror phenomenon in the late 1990s with the opening and critical success of films such as Hideo Nakata’s The Ring (Ringu, 1998) or Takashi Miike’s Audition (Ôdishon, 1999), Japanese horror has been a staple of both film studies and Western culture. Scholars and fans alike through...

In recent months the 'right-to-die' issue has gripped the nation. Two cases have captured the public imagination like no other: Frances Inglis, convicted of murder for ending the life of her brain-damaged son, and Kay Gilderdale, acquitted for assisting the suicide of her chronically ill daughter. These parallel stories provide a window onto a world of terrible suffering, where women feel that the only course of action open to them is to help their own children to die.What would you...

You only have to mention the name Baby P and it stirs up emotions of anger and sadness. It is a name that will forever be associated with how cruel and evil people can be. Baby P (Peter Connelly) was an innocent angel who suffered the most horrendous torture and abuse at the hands of his stepfather and his stepfather’s brother, while his neglectful mother looked away, more interested in internet chat rooms than the duties of being a mother. Peter was to die an avoidable death as social wor...

It was the drugs that made him murder. He liked to experiment with fatal dosages to see how much they could take. Fascinated with death, he had watched his mother die when he was a child. Killing his elderly lady patients sustained his endless evil urges and nourished his insatiable impulse to recreate his mother’s death...Read about the shocking medical murders of Dr Harold Shipman, along with the horrific killings of Dr Thomas Neill Cream and Dr John Bodkin Adams in this 3 in 1 T...

The bond between parent and child is the strongest natural connection imaginable. But in rare and shocking cases, that bond can be brutally broken. The Philpott family, 'baby P' and jasmine Beckford are just three cases that have made a nation's blood run cold. But what could possibly drive a parent to commit the cruellest crime of all - the killing of their own child.In Parents Who Kill, renowned crime expert Carol Anne Davis explores the motives behind an act which flies in the face of a...

Having a good death is our final human right, argues Sandra Martin in this updated and expanded version of her bestselling and award-winning social history of the right to die movement in Canada and around the world.Winner of the BC National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction, finalist for both the Donner Prize in Public Policy and the Dafoe Prize for History, A Good Death has a new chapter on Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying Law. The law allows mentally competent adults, who are s...

As a young man from a loving, middle class family living in a small English village, Ben Rogers appeared to have it all….but then he found drugs. As his life descended into chaos and despair, Ben began to chronicle his daily struggles with the aid of a video camera. He was hopeful that one day his experiences could be used to educate others. Ben lost his battle against addiction and died when he was 34 as a result of medical withdrawal. His family decided to release the tapes in the hope t...

NOW A MAJOR TELEVISION SERIESThey call Adelaide the city of churches. What they forget is that every church has a graveyard - and every graveyard is full of skeletons.Adelaide, an elegantly designed, civilised city, where the inhabitants are known for their love of the arts, good food and fine wine, is also the place where many of Australia's most bizarre and macabre crimes have taken place.The cases in this book show that Adelaide ...

The tragic and violent death of 17-month old Baby P at the hands of those who were supposed to love and care for him has sickened the nation. That such unimaginable cruelty could be unleashed on an innocent child - and fail to be picked up on by the authorities - has led to a public outcry and a media storm.This is a comprehensive look at the events leading up to the death of Baby P. A recent investigation has found that there was poor communication between authorities, a repeated failure ...

As in his highly acclaimed Austerity Britain, David Kynaston invokes an astonishing array of vivid, intimate and unselfconscious voices to drive his narrative of 1950s Britain. The keen-eyed Nella Last shops assiduously at Barrow Market as austerity and rationing gradually give way to relative abundance; housewife Judy Haines, relishing the detail of suburban life, brings up her children in Chingford; the self-absorbed civil servant Henry St John perfects the art of grumbling. The...

"A fascinating insight into the country's most famous asylum for criminals" which reveals Victorian England's care and management of the mentally ill (Your Family Tree).On 27 May 1863, three coaches pulled up at the gates of a new asylum, built amongst the tall, dense pines of Windsor Forest. Broadmoor's first patients had arrived.In Broadmoor Revealed, Mark Stevens writes about what life was like for the criminally insane, over one hundred years ago...