Christie, Hanratty, The Krays … murderers haunt the mind. We read about them in the press with horrified curiosity and, if we’re lucky, this is as close as we get. But Home Office Pathologise Keith Simpson spent forty years in the very midst of murder. This is his autobiography.


The late Professor Keith Simpson became the first Professor of Forensic Medicine at London University and lectured on the subject to other doctors, lawyers, police officers and magistrates at home and all over the world. He pioneered forensic dentistry, and for the first time identified a suspected murderer by teeth marks left on the victim’s body. He was responsible for the first successful ‘battered baby’ prosecution in England, and perhaps one of his greatest contributions has been to save the lives of countless babies by disseminating information on the syndrome and getting it recognized and controlled.


This is the bestselling autobiography of the man who was always at the scene of the crime. In describing his celebrated investigations he spares his readers none of the chilling details: the whip-marks, the maggots, the skeletal remains, which proved the innocence of so many men and women…and sent so many more to the gallows.