David C Hanrahan – författare

A turncoat, spy and double agent, Colonel Blood is most notorious for being the only person to successfully steal the Crown Jewels. David Hanrahan tells the gripping tale of 17th century England's most wanted man.

Only once in history has a British Prime Minister been assassinated. At 5.00 p.m. on Monday, 11 May 1812, John Bellingham made his way to the Houses of Parliament carrying concealed weapons. At 5.15 p.m., as the Prime Minister, the Rt Hon. Spencer Perceval, was making his way across the lobby leading to the House of Commons, Bellingham shot him dead at point-blank range. Bellingham was immediately arrested and put on trial two days later: refusing to plead insanity, he was convicted and hanged before the week was out. Bellingham was neither a revolutionary nor a religious fanatic, but a successful young entrepreneur. What had driven him to commit such a heinous crime? In a story of suspense, revenge and personal tragedy, David C. Hanrahan tells the interwoven stories of Perceval and Bellingham, detailing not just the events of May 1812, but also the two men's histories, and what led one to take the other's life.

On 2 August 1876, a young policeman named Constable Nicholas Cock was shot dead while walking ‘the beat’ at Whalley Range, Manchester. A few months later, on the evening of 29 November 1876, Arthur Dyson, an engineer, was murdered in his own backyard at Banner Cross, Sheffield. Charles Peace was Victorian Britain’s most infamous cat burglar and murderer. He was a complex character: ruthless, devious, dangerous, charming, intelligent and creative. Mrs Katherine Dyson identified him as the murderer of her husband, and as the police searched the country for him, Peace was living a life of luxury under another identity in London. One of these murders became the most notorious and scandalous case of the Victorian age, with a tale of illicit romance and a nationwide hunt for Britain’s most wanted man; the other was to become a landmark in British legal history. Although no one suspected a link between them, these two sensational murder cases would, in the end, turn out to be tied together in a way that shocked Victorian society to its core.