Wicked Beyond Belief: The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper

The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper

De: Michael Bilton

Narrado por: Marston York

Now a major TV series ‘A masterpiece that reads like a thriller’ Time Out

A gripping and probing account of the biggest criminal manhunt in British history.

It is over 40 years since Peter Sutcliffe was convicted of murdering 13 women and attacking 7 more. Still, he remains a killer of almost mythical proportions; his surviving victims, and their families, forever attached to his infamy.

Michael Bilton’s acclaimed account is a powerful indictment of the calamitous investigation that logged over 2 million man-hours of police work – the biggest criminal manhunt in British history. With exclusive access to the detectives involved, the pathologist’s archives and declassified documents, this account reads like the most gripping of thrillers.

Fully updated for this edition.

Indeed wicked beyond belief

There's a saying that old British policemen say "There are no bad men, only bad officers". The Yorkshire Ripper investigation, as elegantly, simply, and tragically told in this book is such an example of this saying. In this account of a murderer who stalked and killed in the North of England in the late 1970s, clues and links that would have caught the Yorkshire Ripper sooner were ignored, buried, and suppressed. Even after the dust settled, critical information was withheld and reforms were not implemented. Wicked Beyond Belief is a critical account of what can and did go wrong with a police investigation when a perfect storm of politics, fear, ignorance, lack of imagination and sheer depravity allows such a man like Peter Sutcliffe to kill thirteen women and attack scores more, leaving a long shadow that haunts the North of England to this day.

Incredibly well done

Research, writing, content is all superb. Anyone interested in this event should read this definitive account of a tragic event in UK history. Sadly, it doesn’t appear that police learned as much as they could have given equally tragic handling of grooming gangs also in northern England.

great story. I learned lots of new information

I really enjoyed that. the book was not just about the killer but focused mostly on the victims and on the investigators

Fascinating and Gripping

I was blown away by how fascinating this book was. Even having watched the documentary prior I found this book engrossing and disturbing, and how much was uncovered so many years later was bonkers. No spoilers, but the fascinating way that the different endings occurred as he went through the years of updated printings made the final part of the book, So well done.