"Handsome Brute: The Story of a Ladykiller" by Sean O'Connor

[Nigeyb]

I plan to read this in the next couple of months. Care to join in?



It's readily available in both the US and UK at a very reasonable price and has a plethora of positive reviews.

"But what's it got to do with Patrick Hamilton?" I hear you cry.

Or do I?

You are probably already well aware that this book is about Neville Heath, and Neville Heath was the inspiration for Ernest Gorse (of The Gorse Trilogy: The West Pier, Mr Stimpson And Mr Gorse, Unknown Assailant).

Heath...Gorse...geddit?

Here's a bit more info about the book...



Handsome Brute: The Story of a Ladykiller by Sean O'Connor

Handsome Brute explores the facts of a once-renowned, now little-remembered British murder case, the killings of the charming, but deadly ex-RAF playboy Neville Heath.

Since the 1940s, Heath has generally been dismissed as a sadistic sex-killer - the preserve of sensational Murder Anthologies - and little else. But the story behind the tabloid headlines reveals itself to be complex and ambiguous, provoking unsettling questions that echo across the decades to the present day.

For the first time, with access to previously restricted files from the Home Office and Metropolitan Police, this book explores the complex motivations behind the murders through the prism of the immediate post-war period.

Against the backdrop of a society in flux, a culture at a moment of change, how much is Heath's case symptomatic, or indeed, emblematic of the age he lived in?

Handsome Brute is both an examination of the age of austerity, and a real-life thriller as shocking and provocative as American Psycho or The Killer Inside Me, exploring the perspectives of the women in Heath's life - his wife, his mother, his lovers - and his victims.

This collage of experiences from the women who knew him intimately probes the schism at the heart of his fascinating, chilling personality.

[Susan]

Hamilton is mentioned in the very beginning, plus most events take place in pubs and seaside towns he would have been very familiar with.

By the way, you may have to curb your enthusiasm on the Olivia Manning books - it is losing in the vote. Hot read?

[Nigeyb]

^ Yes to Hot Read Susan - as you know



I am about 100 pages in now and really enjoying this book - it is a wonderful companion read to the Gorse Trilogy, and more generally Hamilton's milieu.

The biographies of the main players are fascinating. The slip from gentility to bohemianism/penury for first victim Margery Gardner. The family bankrupcy at the heart of Reginald Spooner (aka "Britain's greatest detective") and his ongoing sense of duty and fear of financial insecurity. And, more generally, how the war so fundamentally changed British society, criminality, morality etc.

A fascinating book and recommended to all Hamiltonians.

[Nigeyb]

I have just finished Handsome Brute: The Story of a Ladykiller by Sean O'Connor. Click here to read my review, or just read on....


Handsome Brute: The Story of a Ladykiller explores the case of a once-renowned, now little-remembered British murderer called Neville Heath. Neville Heath was a charming, but deadly ex member of the RAF who was convicted of two brutal murders in 1946 - his crimes were headline news, and his trial and subsequent death were one of the biggest news stories of the era.

What elevates this book from run of the mill 'true crime' is how the crimes are a springboard into a more forensic examination of the era. Sean O'Connor asserts that Heath's mental state and crimes were a product of his era. They were certainly emblematic of the age he lived through and I suspect he might not have committed them had he been born twenty years earlier or twenty years later.

The book contains much fascinating information about Britain and South Africa during Heath's era. I learned a lot from this book despite having already read quite a bit about the era. Here's an example, I had never realised that, until shortly before WW2, the RAF was part of the Army, and that once it became a separate service it developed a very distinct culture, and attracted a very different type of individual. Typically their recruits were relatively casual and unconventional and in contrast to the senior services (army and navy) including their dress and language, which we now regard as a cartoonish stereotype, silk scarves, pencil moustaches, and of course the slang.

Sean O'Connor also explores the backgrounds of all the main players, and this makes for fascinating reading. One of Heath's victims, Margery Gardner, slipped from gentility to bohemianism to the horror of her family and the papers made much of this in their reporting.

Similarly the policeman who arrested Heath, Reginald Spooner (aka "Britain's greatest detective"), was haunted by a family bankruptcy which informed his obsession with his work and career to the detriment of his own family. Sean O'Connor also uses this section to explore how the WW2 fundamentally changed British criminality and morality.

The most fascinating aspect is inevitably Heath himself. A charming, intelligent man who, according to letters he wrote to his family after his conviction, was a loving and dutiful son and brother and this persona is in stark contrast to the savage and disturbing murderer whose crimes remain genuinely shocking. From his earliest days he was a fantasist and prone to impetuous and ill conceived acts of crime, the majority of which he got away with due to a mixture of his contrition and charm. His personality could not match his inflated ambitions though and so his "career" was a succession of disappointments. These setbacks probably exacerbated an already fragile psyche.

All in all it's an engrossing, well written, fascinating, complex, provocative and ambiguous tale. Highly recommended.

4/5