While the Luftwaffe bombed London and its citizens fled underground, a killer emerged from the shadows to satisfy his inner darkness...In February 1942, a woman was found strangled in a London air raid shelter. Over five days, the man dubbed as the 'Blackout Ripper' had struck with a lightening-fast ferocity that stunned and baffled investigators - his crimes becoming more brutal at each turn. Strangulation was often followed by brutal sex acts and mutilation. The victims varied from a prostitute to a teacher - nobody knew where the man, described by a pathologist at the time as 'a savage sexual maniac', would strike next.In the utter darkness of the blackout, where not even a crack of light was allowed to show for fear of German bombs, the killer could hide and strike at will at an already terrified population. Chief Superintendent Frederick Cherrill, head of Scotland Yard's revolutionary fingerprint division, could find no apparent motive. The killer left few clues in his bloody wake - until a slip up revealed his true identity, and shocked a city that thought it had seen it all.

In this compelling true life thriller, "The Blackout Murders", Simon Read provides the reader with the unvarnished reality of a killer who seemed so decent, so cheerful, so normal...