How do you take on one of the biggest literature legacies of the past half-century? That’s what Nick Harkaway was asked to do after his father, David Cornwell (aka John Le Carré) died in 2020. Karla’s Choice, Nick’s latest in the George Smiley world puts us in a sinister world of subterfuge, Hungarian agents and 1960s London. In this interview, Nick tells us how he approached the writing of Karla’s Choice, what he learned from his father - and what he had to learn on-the-job, and how he balances...
Jun 10, 2025•36 min
# Subscribe for free: robertmurphy.substack.com # Recorded at CrimeFest in Bristol, England, May 2025 Lee Child on how his TV career helped him write, his favourite authors, how he ‘writes the fast stuff slow and the slow stuff fast’ and handing the Jack Reacher baton to his brother Andrew. Links mentioned in the show: https://www.jackreacher.com/us/ https://www.crimefest.com/ Decoy book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Decoy-secretive-historical-undercover-operations/dp/0008666814/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0...
May 27, 2025•38 min
Neil Woods spent fourteen years as an undercover police officer, helping dismantle some of Britain’s most notorious drug gangs. Yet after his biggest victory he came to the conclusion: was it worth it? He started to feel that the problem was helped by repeated failures of governments to tackle the cause of Britain and America’s drugs epidemic. In fact by handing control of drugs supply to criminals governments were the cause. ‘A doctor controlling it (drugs supply) with a prescription pad has no...
Dec 10, 2024•31 min
On November 7th 1974, a children’s nanny Sandra Rivett was murdered at the home of the family in which she was in service. It was the Lucan family. Lord Lucan - her suspected killer - may have been targeting his estranged wife. But a man who had squandered his family fortune at Belgravia’s gaming tables proved to be as inept at murder as he was at gambling. And he killed poor Sandra. This is the perceived wisdom - and the finding of an inquest. But with so little known for sure, conjecture fills...
Nov 07, 2024•1 hr 56 min
Neil Woods spent years as an undercover police officer. He says his techniques in included ‘weaponising empathy’ - using the good nature of society’s most vulnerable. And as Britain was being hit by a wave of cheap drugs and a rise in heroin and crack cocaine addicts, Neil had the most staggering results. In just one operation against Britain’s most notorious gang - The Burger Bar Boys - his work led to 96 arrests. But what impact did living a double-life have on this family man? What was it lik...
Oct 29, 2024•43 min
Subscribe for free: robertmurphy.substack.com In Cold Blood started as a study in how a heartbreaking killing impacted a Mid-West community. But Truman Capote got sucked into the story. At first, the folk of Holcomb, Kansas, distrusted the flamboyant writer. But slowly, he won the small city round. And when the killers were caught, he built an unbelievable and controversial bond with them. In this episode, Capote’s friend and biographer, Gerald Clarke, describes the awful murders of the Clutter ...
Sep 25, 2024•42 min
Subscribe for free at Robertmurphy.substack.com Maxim Jakobowski has sold millions of books. But you may not have heard of him. After releasing a book aged 16, he moved into publishing and worked with Patricia Highsmith (‘an incredible talent… a very difficult lady…’) he then turned to crime writing. When ‘50 Shades of Grey’ was released, he was drafted into writing a series of erotica - which sold millions of books. And how did he sell the rights of a novel to Nicole Kidman… for a fortune? A qu...
Sep 11, 2024•39 min
Billie-Jo Jenkins was a talented 13-year-old schoolgirl who had found what appeared to be the perfect foster family: four daughters, a mum who was a social worker and a dad who was a deputy headteacher. Sion Jenkins was an upstanding member of an affluent town’s community. But he had secrets. Like the lies about his academic qualifications and the affair with a teenage girl who looked a lot like Billie-Jo. When Billie-Jo was found dead in her garden in 1997, it was Sion who called 999. Detective...
Aug 14, 2024•37 min
#Subscribe for free: robertmurphy.substack.com # Jackie Kabler met one of Britain’s most notorious killers for her job as a breakfast TV correspondent. Years later, she used her experience covering crime for her fictional thrillers. Her psychological drama The Perfect Couple has sold over 400,000 copies and she has sold nearly a million books in total. Her latest story, The Life Sentence , is based on a case of wrongful prosecution which she heard about on a true crime podcast. You can find out ...
Jul 23, 2024•24 min
SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE: ROBERTMURPHY.SUBSTACK.COM By the late 1980s, Jackie Malton seemed to have it all. She was one of only three female detective chief inspectors in the Metropolitan Police. She had worked on major inquiries and was a noted leader. But she had also stood up against the force’s grey male authority, against corruption, misogyny and freemasonry. Bruising encounters which left her unliked by some, stymied in her career and battling with alcohol. Then she received the phone call which...
Jul 16, 2024•35 min
#Subscribe for FREE: robertmurphy.substack.com # Jackie Malton was a policing pioneer, joining a British provincial force in 1970, then transferring to the Metropolitan Police where she served in the Fraud Squad, Flying Squad and murder squads. She was often the only woman serving in each team. In this episode, she describes how she overcame homophobia and misogyny, clashed with corrupt officers and worked on one of London’s most controversial inquiries: The New Cross Fire investigation. Jackie’...
Jul 09, 2024•53 min
It was the early 1990s and Lynda La Plante was desperate. She had a few TV drama successes under her belt, but everything she was pitching was greeted with a ‘no’ from commissioners. Then, in a pitch meeting, she dreamt up Prime Suspect when the TV boss said she wanted a ‘cop show with a female detective and a murder.' But to create Det Ch Insp Jane Tennison, Lynda needed to research true crime. Enter Met detective Jackie Malton - and months of research. This interview coincides with the release...
Jul 02, 2024•41 min
For extras subscribe at: robertmurphy.substack.com Samantha Robins was the Intelligence Manager on the Major Crime Team at Surrey Police in May 2010 when, late in the evening, the call came in: a young mother had been murdered in her home. What followed was a multi-pronged inquiry. Sarah Thomas was a 38-year-old mother of three who was found in her flat in a quiet English village. Her boyfriend raised the alarm - and was arrested. But when it became clear he was not responsible for Sarah’s death...
Jun 25, 2024•1 hr 8 min
Janice Hallett has created three of the most inventive crime books of recent years. When I first started reading ‘The Appeal’ I was a bit dubious. How could a crime novel with big characters really be told through emails and messages? Then I got into the book… Next came The Twyford Code with a main character, a prisoner Steve Smith who can neither read nor write, who reveals his story through transcripts of audio recordings. It is GENIUS! And now there is the Mysterious Case of the Alperton Ange...
Jun 18, 2024•24 min
#To watch this interview - subscribe at robertmurphy.substack.com# Det Insp Paul Franklin was in charge of the inquiry to bring the murderous, cheating husband Emile Cilliers to justice. But it wasn’t easy. There was little direct evidence that Cilliers had tampered with the parachute of his wife, Victoria. There was no CCTV nor DNA. And Victoria did not support the investigation into her husband. A new docudrama about the case is being broadcast in the UK. To coincide with this, Paul has given ...
Jun 12, 2024•1 hr 8 min
#To watch this interview - subscribe at robertmurphy.substack.com# Emile Cilliers made global headlines in 2018 when he was convicted of the attempted murder of his wife Victoria. He was an upstanding army sergeant, a family man, who led a debaucherous double life of sex clubs, girlfriends and payday loans. He tried to murder Victoria by tampering with the gas meter in their home. When this failed, he sabotaged her parachute - both her main and reserve canopies. Somehow, Victoria survived the 4,...
Jun 11, 2024•56 min
#Subscribe for free: robertmurphy.substack.com# Laura Lippman spent more than 20 years as a journalist working in Texas and Baltimore. She has won Edgar, Agatha, Anthony, Barry, Nero and Shamus awards (among many others) for her 25 novels - which include 12 featuring the private investigator Tess Monaghan Her latest, Prom Mom, has a loose inspiration by the 1997 case of Melissa Drexler a New Jersey teenager who gave birth during her prom, but then something truly awful happened… Laura discusses ...
Jun 04, 2024•53 min
#Subscribe for free at robertmurphy.substack.com # This was Penelope Jackson’s final chance. The evidence against her seemed overwhelming: the glib 999 call admitting the killing of her husband, her further confessions on police body worn footage. In court, even her friends had described her as overbearing and domineering. Now it was her turn to take to the witness stand to give her version of events. In the words of her lawyer: ‘She could see no way out, She replaced invisible handcuffs for rea...
May 28, 2024•49 min
#Subscribe for free: robertmurphy.substack.com# To friends, David and Penelope Jackson were like most other retired couples living in the West Country. They had a good life: a nice home, an active social life and a penchant for foreign cruises. But in February 2021, Penelope killed her husband after a birthday celebration. She then called 999 saying ‘I stabbed him once, then he said I wouldn’t do it again so I did it twice more.’ Had she been suffering in silence for years at the hands of a sile...
May 21, 2024•33 min
Subscribe for free: robertmurphy.substack.com Award-winning crime novelist Denise Mina has written the latest Philip Marlowe book: The Second Murderer. To research the book, she spent months studying Los Angeles in 1940, deconstructing Raymond Chandler’s distinct sentence structure and recreating his unique humour. Denise’s career straddles both crime fiction and true crime. She has won many awards - including the Theakstons Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year two years running and has been ind...
May 14, 2024•31 min
To coincide with the launch of my true crime book ‘Decoy’ I’ve updated and reissued this podcast featuring a rare and exclusive interview with Chris Gould. In the 1970s, the city of Bristol was terrorised by a man nicknamed ‘The Clifton Rapist.’ The stranger-attacker assaulted seven women over a two-year period. PC Chris Gould suggested a daring honeytrap: Avon and Somerset Police should set up an innovative undercover sting, using young rookie police officers as decoys to catch him. This was a ...
May 03, 2024•47 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit robertmurphy.substack.com Subscribe at: robertmurphy.substack.com Nearly 20 years had passed and forensic scientist Dr Colin Dark received a call asking if he’d like to take on the case of Hilda Murrell. What clues had been left at the scene? How could they be analysed using modern techniques? And what truths would emerge about the theories surrounding her murder? This is a short p…...
Apr 16, 2024•2 min
Subscribe at robertmurphy.substack.com On March 21st 1984, Hilda Murrell disappeared. It would take police three days to find her - yet her body was in the obvious place. She had been murdered. But by whom? Now the conspiracy theories started: Did the British government want Hilda dead because of her awkward questions about a new nuclear power station? Was she killed because of her links with naval intelligence? And was the phone line disconnection in her home the work of a bungling amateur or a...
Apr 16, 2024•32 min
SUBSCRIBE: robertmurphy.substack.com Screenwriter George Kay (Hijack, Lupin, The Long Shadow, Criminal UK) was talking with his mother about a potential project: would he be interested in writing a script about the Lord Lucan mystery? Then, she dropped the bombshell: he had a personal link with the other Lucan nanny Christabel Boyce. George wanted to speak with Christabel - she would be a primary source and knew the main characters from ‘74. This was impossible, his mother said. Christabel had h...
Apr 02, 2024•33 min
SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE: robertmurphy.substack.com In her book ‘A Different Class of Murder: The Story of Lord Lucan’ writer Laura Thompson suggests six possible scenarios of what happened on the night of November 7th 1974. Was Lady Lucan the target? Did Lord Lucan carry out the killing himself or - as with the rest of his life - did he get help? And speaking of help, did his rich, powerful gambling friends at the Clermont Club aid his disappearance? Or were they - like he - a target of 1970s society...
Mar 26, 2024•37 min
SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE: robertmurphy.substack.com Within a few moments on the night of November 7th 1974, Lord Lucan killed his children’s nanny, tried to murder his wife - and then disappeared. But that attack had been brewing for months, years even. And still - half a century on - people argue about what really happened. Was his estranged wife really the target? Was it Lucan in the cellar with the lead piping? Or a hitman? Had he somehow bungled an attempt to kill his wife? And what about his rich...
Mar 19, 2024•44 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit robertmurphy.substack.com #Subscribe for free at robertmurphy.substack.com # Margaret Backhouse survived - it was a miracle. The car bomb seemed amateur but it was effective. Why would anyone want to target an elegant farmer’s wife in a quiet, safe English village? Detectives then heard about a hate campaign against her husband Graham. Dark notices left on the farm forewarning murd…...
Feb 27, 2024•4 min
SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE at robertmurphy.substack.com In June 1984, 17-year-old Melanie Road was murdered as she walked home from a nightclub in the beautiful city of Bath, England. The investigation became Britain’s biggest manhunt, yet despite 96 arrests, her killer was never found. Twenty five years later, Det Sgt Julie Mackay joined Avon & Somerset Police’s cold case unit. ‘I always knew I would find Melanie’s killer,’ she says. It would take seven further years of trying. The investigation sa...
Feb 13, 2024•38 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit robertmurphy.substack.com This suspect had already escaped from police custody once. Now he was wanted for a triple murder. He was living wild off the land and Britain’s newspapers had joined the police hunt. The suspect was even taunting the inquiry, writing to journalists describing police as ‘boy scouts.’ Then a detective had an ingenious idea to set a trap. Subscribe at robert…...
Jan 30, 2024•2 min
In October 1998, Jenny King vanished. The 22-year-old had been on a night out at a club near her home in Kingswood near Bristol, in the South West of England. Police realised the office worker was in a good, stable relationship. She had no enemies. And no-one would want to harm her. But a friend of Jenny’s came forward. In the hour before Jenny disappeared, she had said something about a ‘psycho ex boyfriend’ being in the nightspot. Behind the Crimes is a reader-supported publication. To see evi...
Jan 22, 2024•1 hr 4 min
