The Lost British Serial Killer [Paperback]

I really enjoyed this book, and found it hard to put down. It covers all the materials that you would expect in a book of this kind, but the authors seem to have developed their style since their last effort - about the Ipswich serial murders. I suppose this is what would be called superior true crime, because Wilson is a criminology Professor and Harrison is a journalist that works for Sky News. So, it does more than simply re-tell the story of Tobin but tries to put him and his crimes into a bigger context. It also suggests that Tobin was the Glasgow serial killer Bible John, and I for one was convinced by what they argued.

I bought this book because the disappearance of Dinah McNicol haunted me for years, I never met her but I was in a band that played Torpedo Town festival that year and I was dismayed to hear afterwards a young person had vanished on her way home, I prayed she would turn up alive but of course she didn't. The chapter in this book about Dinah is therefore especially sad and chilling for me.

I agree with the other reviewers that this is a compelling read with a lot of valuable information on modern policing techniques which hopefully may yet make Tobin one of the 'last British serial killers' (there's a hint in the book this was the original title). There are mercifully only a couple of incidents of `copy and paste' journalism (ie. a `review' of Wikipedia entries) with the emphasis not on biographical details and gore but on changes to police methods in the last forty years and on the advances in psychological profiling of killers. (Along the way I certainly didn't realise Ian Brady is now some sort of professor in criminal psychology and has even published an analysis of the serial killer mindset (he should know I suppose) this book suggests there is a bit of a news black-out in Britain about this and I got the impression the authors couldn't resist 'breaking the embargo').

In arguing Peter Tobin was Bible John the authors did leave me with a few questions, firstly if Bible John had a stand up row with the manager of the Barrowlands, surely this manager would have then had the clearest recollection of what Bible John looked like rather than the bouncers and the sister in the taxi. There is no mention in the book of the manager being interviewed about this, and what about the taxi driver as well? Nor do the authors reference the fact that, as someone who was then visibly under-25, Tobin (if he was Bible John) might have had difficulty getting into the `over 25s' dances at the Barrowlands.

I enjoyed the book and admit I couldn't put it down, but I feel a possible weakness of this book (and perhaps of a lot of the 'true crime' genre) is its lack of any kind of `feminist' critique, even where the contents suggests one (eg. in the 'cold cases' section). The task in the book of `proving' Peter Tobin was Bible John appears to ignore the welter of violence carried out against women and children between the 1960s and 2000s which the book itself reviews and which was perpetrated by any number of men either as planned campaigns against women or as simple opportunistic hate crimes. For me it is the history of this endemic misogyny which explains a lot about the supposed mystery of Bible John's identity, basically it could have been any one of the casual punters at the Barrowlands at the time (an atmosphere well evoked in the book). Until very recently this misogyny has meant violence against women has largely gone unpunished and has meant to a lot of men, not just Tobin, believing they are above the law. Rape in marriage didn't even become a crime in Britain until 1991, and even today less than 7% of reported rapes lead to convictions (95% aren't reported at all). Female journalists note the police at the Yorkshire Ripper press conferences in the 1970s made jokes about `dirty prostitutes' when the cameras were off moments after having expressed fake sympathy for his victims and appeals for assistance. In the 1960s Calvinist police officers in Glasgow therefore probably shared enough of Bible John's contempt for `adulterous women' to have overlooked obvious clues (including his first murder itself as the book points out) and even if they didn't the wider Glaswegian public probably did.

Sadly serial killers have been able to operate freely in Britain mainly because for a long time police and the wider society didn't care about the welfare of prostitutes, nor about most women and children in general, nor about the poor or the defenceless. As an aside in this book suggests, if the police had bothered regularly interviewing Bathgate's prostitutes about their clients' perversions then perhaps this knowledge about the married Tobin's behaviour would have helped them to take him off our streets decades earlier. God rest the souls of Tobin's victims, all at peace now RIP.

I have never read a true crime book before and they have never appealed to me but I decided to read this as it was highly recommended to me and, because I had always had a slight interest in Bible John (being a child in the 60s living in the Glasgow area, his 'photo' was synonymous with the bogie man to me).

The first half is about the Bible John murders and actually revealed how little solid evidence there is compared to our world now of DNA and advanced forensics. There was a lot of time spent explaining this which was interesting. I really found the profiling of this man very interesting too.

There is then a section on Peter Tobin and information gathered from his wives. He really is the epitome of evil and I found this quite disturbing. However, the book lacked insight into his childhood but I don't know whether this was because no information is available about it but I felt more research could have been done about this.

Links are offered for various cold cases which could be blamed on Tobin and then, finally, there is the summing up of the argument that Tobin and Bible John is the same man.

Overall, this book was fascinating and very gripping. It has made an impact on me. My only complaint is that it was slightly disjointed and the structure a bit erratic. Other than that, very fascinating indeed.