Murder: The Biography

THE CRIMES. THE STORIES. THE LAW¿Fascinating¿ ¿ Sunday Times¿Masterful¿ ¿ Judith Flanders¿A page-turning read'' ¿ Prof. David WilsonTotally gripping and brilliantly told, Murder: The Biography is a gruesome and utterly captivating portrait of the legal history of murder.The stories and the people involved in the history of murder are stranger, darker and more compulsive than any crime fiction. There¿s Richard Parker, the cannibalized cabin boy whose death at the hands of his hungry crewmates led the Victorian courts to decisively outlaw a defence of necessity to murder. Dr Percy Bateman, the incompetent GP whose violent disregard for his patient changed the law on manslaughter. Ruth Ellis, the last woman hanged in England in the 1950s, played a crucial role in changes to the law around provocation in murder cases. And Archibald Kinloch, the deranged Scottish aristocrat whose fratricidal frenzy paved the way for the defence of diminished responsibility. These, and many more, are the peo