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Find out moreSimon Read is an award-winning British newspaper reporter, who currently lives in the San Francisco Bay area.
A serial killer stalking the London Underground system in the second world war sounds like the plot for some fictional thriller but this is the true story of a ruthless killer who took the lives of several women in the 1940’s. Having survived the bombings in London they found a gruesome end in the shelters they had sought for safety. This reads like fiction but unfortunately it’s not.
There was more to wartime London than stiff upper lips and rousing choruses of 'Roll Out the Barrel'. Criminals hunted their prey without fear of reprisal. Many operated under the cover of darkness, emerging when the city sank into the oblivion of its nightly blackout. Others simply struck whenever opportunity presented itself. At a time when Londoners were pulling together in the face of terrible adversity, there were an increasing number of looters, racketeers, terrorists, criminal gangs, prostitutes, rapists and murderers stalking the bomb-ravaged, panic-ridden streets, and Dark City chronicles the rapid rise of crime throughout this turbulent period. Indeed, wartime London was a criminal's paradise. The number of bodies being retrieved during the Blitz made it virtually impossible for authorities to perform autopsies on all of them. The question soon arose: who were the victims of bombings, and who had simply been murdered? Award-winning crime writer Simon Read paints a vivid picture of what life was really like in 1940s London, and profiles the crimes of its most notorious perpetrators, including the Blackout Ripper, Chicago Joe, the Elephant Boys, and the infamous Rillington Place Murderer, John Reginald Christie.
Long before his finest hour as Britain's wartime leader, Winston Churchill emerged on the world stage as a brazen foreign correspondent, covering wars of empire in Cuba, India, the Sudan, and South Africa.In those far-flung corners of the world, reporting from the front lines between 1895 and 1900, Churchill mastered his celebrated command of language and formed strong opinions about war. He thought little of his own personal safety, so convinced was he of his destiny, jumping at any chance to be where bullets flew and canons roared. I have faith in my star- that I am intended to do something in the world, he wrote to his mother at the age of twenty-three before heading into battle.Based on his private letters and war reportage, Winston Churchill Reporting intertwines young Winston's daring exploits in combat, adventures in distant corners of the globe, and rise as a major literary talent- experiences that shaped the world leader he was to become.
Long before his finest hour as Britain's wartime leader, Winston Churchill emerged on the world stage as a brazen foreign correspondent, covering wars of empire in Cuba, India, the Sudan, and South Africa. In those far-flung corners of the world, reporting from the front lines between 1895 and 1900, Churchill mastered his celebrated command of language and formed strong opinions about war. He thought little of his own personal safety, so convinced was he of his destiny, jumping at any chance to be where bullets flew and canons roared. "e;I have faith in my star that I am intended to do something in the world,"e; he wrote to his mother at the age of twenty-three before heading into battle. Based on his private letters and war reportage, Winston Churchill Reporting intertwines young Winston's daring exploits in combat, adventures in distant corners of the globe, and rise as a major literary talent experiences that shaped the world leader he was to become.
On Wednesday 14 February 1945, the body of Charles Walton was discovered on the lower slopes of Meon Hill near the sleepy Warwickshire village of Lower Quinton, his torso pinned to the ground by a pitchfork. Myths and rumours soon swirled about the crime. Accounts claim Walton, a retired labourer and a lifelong resident of Lower Quinton, was believed by many to be a clairvoyant who could talk to birds and exercise control over animals. It has even been reported that many villagers attributed Walton's death to ritual witchcraft. But what is fact and what is fiction? The most famous police officer in Britain, Chief Inspector Robert Fabian, was promptly dispatched by Scotland Yard to solve this increasingly peculiar and foreboding mystery. `Fabian of the Yard' was not a man prone to superstition and had dealt with some of the most notorious killers of his time - but there was something strange about the Walton murder. Did the clues point to ritual witchcraft as the modus operandi, or was the black magic angle merely a ruse? With the villagers unable - or unwilling - to shed light on the matter, Fabian faced, for the only time in his glittering career, the daunting prospect of failure. The Case That Foiled Fabian lays out for the first time what actually happened and distills the truth from the many myths about this case that are today mistaken for facts.
In March 1944, 76 Allied officers tunnelled out of Stalag Luft III. Of the 73 captured, 50 were shot by direct order of Hitler. This is the story of how a British Bobby from Blackpool, Frank McKenna, was sent to post-war Germany on the express orders from Churchill to bring the Gestapo murderers to justice. In a quest that ranges from the devastated, bombed out cities of Europe to the horrors of the concentrations camps, McKenna is relentless in his pursuit. A gripping read set in the aftermath of World War II.
From Bremen to Berlin, Simon Read follows the supreme effort of the RAF to take the war to Germany. As Churchill pointed out, the fighter might win the battle, but the bomber would win the war. According to Goebbels himself, one had only to look into the eyes of Arthur Harris, C-in-C Bomber Command, to see an unquenchable thirst for blood and a passion for slaughter. For some this would seem to be the highest praise, considering its source; for others, the burning of Dresden was a war crime. The author meets the controversy head-on.
Amid the carnage and destruction of the Second World War, RAF Bomber Command's efforts to blast Germany into submission would emerge as one of the bloodiest and most protracted campaigns of the war - this is the story of those who braved the killing skies of Nazi Germany.
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