Crime
Abolish the police. Then what?
One of the best rules of thumb to emerge from systems theory is Stafford Beer’s famous statement: the purpose of…
The roots of riot
That LEGO set or Louis Vuitton bag you’ve always wanted can be yours free if you just wait for the…
Locked up in lockdown
COIVD-19 has turned us all into prisoners: draconian lockdown orders, solitary confinement, monotonous food, limited fresh air and exercise, irregular…
What is organised crime doing disposing of rubbish?
Criminal gangs are growing rich on public-sector contracts
‘I was a tortured, obviously brilliant child’: James Ellroy interviewed
James Ellroy is occasionally quoted as saying he’s the greatest American crime novelist ever. The man sometimes called the ‘demon…
The cops are impotent in lawless New York
New York Things are heating up, in both London and Nueva York, as this place should correctly be called.…
How you can tell the gender of a thief
My attempt at being Columbo was only taking me so far. In solving the mystery of who raided the barn,…
Bomb attacks are now a normal part of Swedish life
Stockholm One night last week, explosions took place in three different locations in and around Stockholm. There were no injuries…
Is hate crime really on the rise?
The Guardian ran a story on its website today headlined: ‘Hate crimes doubled in England and Wales in five years.’…
How many Britons now vape?
Talking Turkey David Cameron again accused the Leave campaign of ‘lying’ about the prospect of Turkey joining the EU. A…
A gang of sheep rustlers is stalking the county – who will be the next target?
Though autumn is happily still some way off, we’ve already reached that stage in the shepherd’s calendar when full-grown lambs…
Capers in crime: Life for Sale, by Yukio Mishima, reviewed
Few biographies are quite as impressive as Yukio Mishima’s. One of Japan’s most famous authors, he wrote 80 plays and…
Racist incidents are down since Trump’s election. Yes, really
The election of Donald Trump has, of course, unleashed the latent racist which lurks within millions of Americans. We know…
Rape has become dangerously politicised
It is more than three years since the town of Tisdale, Saskatchewan, decided to ditch its motto ‘Land of Rape…
As a QC, I believe the time has come to legalise drugs
I have been a defence lawyer for more than 25 years. I have defended clients charged with almost every crime…
Can you really teach students to solve knife crime?
Next year the London Interdisciplinary School (LIS) will offer one degree, in design, technology and the humanities, to teach students…
True crime has never been more popular, but it often forgets the families left behind
I’ve talked to Denise Horvath-Allan more than my own mother this year. Denise’s son Charles went missing while backpacking in…
Where would we be without crime’s heavies? Muscle, by Alan Trotter, reviewed
Let’s hear it for the heavies, the unsung heroes of noir crime fiction on page and screen. The genre would…
Pirates of the Caribbean: How Venezuela’s near collapse is causing a crisis on the seas
Brian Austin, a fisherman from the small village of Cedros in Trinidad, is struggling to describe the men who robbed…
How did the BBC’s podcast Unexpected Fluids ever get made?
You may have noticed the flood of podcasts that’s been pouring out of the BBC since the launch of its…
Shades of Lord Lucan: A Double Life, by Flynn Berry, reviewed
A young girl finds the body of her nanny, brutally murdered, and the barely moving form of her mother, a…
When does a murderer become a madman?
There was no reason for Edward Drummond to believe this January day was going to be different to any other…
The Victorian melodrama that led to murder and mayhem
Early on the morning of 6 May 1840, a young housemaid in a respectable Mayfair street discovered that her master,…
The cruel end of Emmanuel Barthélemy –as a waxwork in the Chamber of Horrors
This is a biography that begins with a bang, swiftly followed by puddles of blood, shrieks of ‘Murder!’ and a…
The DPP’s Alison Saunders was never much cop
An interesting development for our police force, then. In future they do not have to believe everything someone tells them,…
