Reprinted every year since 1986. Includes chapters on Jack the Ripper, The Kray Twins, executions, the hangmen of London, prisons. If you are interested in the darker side of London's history, its ghosts, murderers, mystery and misery, then join us in our trip through London... The Sinister Side.

Reveals secrets previously guarded behind locked doors, nineteenth century divorce cases, illicit love affairs, prostitution and night life.

Prostitutes, criminals, backstreet abortionists, strikers and the police give lengthy accounts of their activities in a frank and unsentimental look at London life from the death of Victoria to the outbreak of the Second World War.

Although internationally famous for being the home of Britain's most famous outlaw, Robin Hood, Nottingham, like all large cities, has housed tens of thousands of lawbreakers with no intention whatsoever of giving to the poor. The most famous murderers include 'Nurse' Waddingham who poisoned two of her patients for their inheritance, and Herbert Mills, who executed 'the perfect murder' in order to sell his story to the newspapers - both were hanged.

Pickpockets, petty thieves, prostitutes, drunks, murderers and wife-beaters galore people its pages, staring back at the reader from police 'mug-shots' with grim resignation, pathos or rebellion in their eyes sandwiched between spine-chilling 'penny-dreadful' illustrations portraying scenes of red murder of callous brutality, each of which for a fleeting moment in time, shocked the un-shockable!

Life for Lancashire lasses in Victorian times often followed the path from mill or mine to marriage and maternity. On average they fell pregnant eight times and would raise their children as they themselves had been raised - in grinding poverty.
The temptation to escape the hardships was too great for many. Some would turn to crime, some to the bottle and some to both. Offenders were paraded in the dock on charges ranging from picking pockets to prostitution.