The Blooding

Fifteen-year-old Lynda Mann's savagely raped and strangled body is found along a shady footpath near the English village of Narborough.  Though a massive 150-man dragnet is launched, the case remains unsolved.  Three years later the killer strikes again, raping and strangling teenager Dawn Ashforth only a stone's throw from where Lynda was so brutally murdered.  But it will take four years, a scientific breakthrough, the largest manhunt in British crime annals, and the blooding of more than four thousand men before the real killer is found.

Here is Wambaugh's most mesmerizing book to date: the haunting and shocking account of two near-perfect crimes in a quiet English village, unravelled by the headline-making discovery that is revolutionizing crime detection--"genetic finger-printing."

Fifteen-year-old Lynda Mann's savagely raped and strangled body is found along a shady footpath near the English village of Narborough.  Though a massive 150-man dragnet is launched, the case remains unsolved.  Three years later the killer strikes again, raping and strangling teenager Dawn Ashforth only a stone's throw from where Lynda was so brutally murdered.  But it will take four years, a scientific breakthrough, the largest manhunt in British crime annals, and the blooding of more than four thousand men before the real killer is found.


From the Paperback edition.

Publishers Weekly

Wambaugh's latest triumphant venture into true crime turns to Leicestershire, England, and the slayings of two teenagers, killings that were eventually solved through scientist Alec Jeffreys's discovery of genetic fingerprinting. ``As Wambaugh's fans have come to expect, this is an eminently readable and most impressive book,'' praised PW. (Dec.)

A former LAPD detective and perennial bestselling author, Joseph Wambaugh is the cops’ poet laureate, and these are the stories he was born to tell.