Mainstream Publishing

In 1955, former nightclub manageress Ruth Ellis shot her lover, David Blakely, dead. A two-day trial followed, but despite huge public outcry, she was found guilty and sentenced to death. At 28, Ruth became the last woman executed in Britain, her hanging one of the most notorious under prolific hangman Albert Pierrepoint.

Carol Ann Lee examines the facts behind the headlines surrounding this infamous case, which many believe led to the dismantling of the death penalty a decade later. Drawing on interviews and in-depth research into the full range of sources, she reveals the woman behind the crime.

Previously published as A Fine Day for a Hanging, this is the acclaimed biography that inspired the ITV drama, A Cruel Love – a portrait of 1950s club life in all its seedy glamour, and a tragic true tale of murder, class, love and betrayal.

Foreword by HRH The Duke of Cambridge

Lance Corporal Martyn Compton’s life changed dramatically when a Taliban ambush killed three of his colleagues in Helmand and left him for dead with third degree burns to 75% of his body.  Bravely rescued by a comrade, he was brought back to Britain in a critical condition and endured the gruelling ordeal of countless operations.  By his side throughout his on-going recovery was his loyal fiancée, Michelle.  They married as soon as Martyn was fit to do so, and have now been blessed with two babies.

Working as a firefighter in London’s East End during the early 1970s was a tough but rewarding job for Allan Grice.  Back then, before the days of health and safety, he would crawl fearlessly below the level of the most intense heat and ‘eat smoke’, if there was a chance of rescuing a stranded child or impeding a rapidly spreading inferno.  Allan’s experiences of fires in factories, warehouses, tenements and other dwellings, as well as non-fire emergencies such as the Moorgate Tube disaster of 1975, are dramatically described, and the camaraderie among the fire crews vividly depicted.

Haspiel was a lifelong friend of Marilyn, who would spend time with her, whenever she came to New York.  This evocative and sumptuously illustrated volume is his personal collection of previously unpublished photographs of Marilyn, and the personal stories behind them.

Linda was plunged into the dark, terrifying world of 1960s institutional life at St Anne’s Convent, Orpington, a Catholic children’s home run by the infamous Sisters of Mercy and a former monk, who inflicted bizarre and barbaric practices on the children in their care.  Cry and You Cry Alone is the achingly honest story of a survivor of shocking child abuse that took place in the heart of an English suburb.

The author, a member of the Duchess of York’s inner circle, was intimate with her dresser, Jane Andrews.  He tracks Andrews from her modest working class roots in Grimsby, catapulted into a jet-setting high life, and leading inexorably to the night when she plunged a nine-inch blade into the heart of her boyfriend, wealthy and popular Thomas Cressman.  Starkie’s story is of passion and fury, which ultimately unhinged ‘Lady Jane’ and drove her to murder.

The inspiring story of a courageous young woman in the German Resistance.  Gretel helped to protect fugitives hunted by the Gestapo, hid her Jewish doctor in her house cellar, and passed secrets to the Resistance, which she had learned from her employment in the Wehrmacht, sending and receiving messages on the Enigma encryption machine.  Rescued in 1945, she married one of the British officers, who had liberated her.