FACTUAL REVIEW: The Lost British Serial Killer - Paul Harrison, David Wilson

Release Date: 01/07/10

BOOK BLURB:

Peter Tobin was already serving a life sentence for murder when he was charged with the murder of two young women - Vicky Hamilton and Dina McNichol, in November 2007. Both girls went missing in 1991. Their bodies were discovered by police in 50 Irvine Drive, Margate - where Tobin once lived. In their new true crime investigation, Paul Harrison and Professor David Wilson examine this shocking case, including full details of Tobin's trial. But perhaps even more importantly, they look into other similar cases around the country. With developments in DNA testing, the police are coming closer and closer to solving a range of terrible and high profile murders. There have been at least five major arrests in recent months, with further arrests sure to follow. Harrison and Wilson investigate these cases, and ask how new DNA tests will change police investigations. But they also ask whether this will be enough to stop murderers in the future, and whether there are larger forces at work in society that need to be addressed before we can stop people from killing again and again.


REVIEW:

As a title, if you’re not interested in crime you really won’t want to read this book as its fairly jumpy and tends to go into quite a lot of detail in regard to each of the crime steps giving the story an all over the place feel. Add to this a lot of repetition and many sub categories that you really did not need to such as how the science functioned (which felt more like unnecessary padding to allow the book to hit a certain word count.) I did feel that more could have been done and a greater depth of investigation could have been engaged with before publishing especially when recent news events have Tobin’s previous home being examined for more suspected victims. If you’re interested in the case it’s OK but if you want a more varied look into serial killers there are better titles out there. A shame that the authors didn’t hold off as I feel that theres more to this story than they’ve achieved within.