BLOOD ON THE PAGE

Winner of the Gold Dagger prize for Non-fiction 2018

‘A marvel of investigative research’ - Financial Times

‘Reads like a thriller’ - Sunday Times

‘Brilliant and unflinching’ - Tony Parsons

In June 2006, police were called to number 9 Downshire Hill in Hampstead to investigate reports of unusual card activity. The owner of the house, Allan Chappelow, was an award-winning photographer and biographer, an expert on George Bernard Shaw, and a notorious recluse, who had not been seen for several weeks. Someone had recently accessed his bank accounts, and attempted to withdraw large amounts of money. Inside the darkened house officers found piles of rubbish, trees growing through the floor, and, in what was once the living room, the body of Chappelow, battered to death, partially burned and buried under four feet of paper.

The man eventually convicted of his murder was a Chinese dissident named Wang Yam: a man who claimed to be the grandson of one of Mao’s closest aides, and a key negotiator in the Tiananmen Square protests. His trial was the first in modern British history to be held ‘in camera’: closed, carefully controlled, secret. Wang Yam has always protested his innocence. 

Thomas Harding has spent the past two years investigating the case, interviewing key witnesses, the investigating officers, forensic experts, and the journalists who broke the story, and has unearthed shocking and revelatory new material on the killing, the victim and the supposed perpetrator. It is a story that has been described in the press and by the leading detective as 'the greatest whodunnit’ of recent years: an extraordinary tale of isolation, deception, espionage and brutal violence, stretching from the quiet streets of north London to the Palace of Westminster and beyond. It is an explosive new work of non-fiction from an author working at the height of his powers.


Read more about the case at www.bloodonthepage.com

Product details:

  • Hardcover: 352 pages

  • Publisher: William Heinemann (2017)

  • Language: English

  • ISBN-10: 1785151045

  • ISBN-13: 978-1785151040

Order at Amazon.co.uk

Videos

BBC Newsnight story on Wang Yam/ Alan Chappelow

Teaser video Penguin, UK

Reviews

"Meticulous and gripping – a thriller that disturbs for revelations about a singular act of murder, and the national security state which we call home." - Philippe Sands, author of East West Street

"Blood on the Page is an In Cold Blood for our time – a brilliant and unflinching anatomy of a murder that is both brutal true crime and heartbreaking human tragedy." - Tony Parsons, author of The Murder Bag

"A fine and fascinating read, bolstered by exemplary research and nuanced insights. Absorbing." - Tobias Jones, Observer

"Reads like a thriller... a rigorous investigation... a revealing piece of social history.” -  Stephen Robinson, Sunday Times

"A real-life procedural... which might have important implications for us all."" - Kathryn Hughes, Guardian

"Thomas Harding follows the twists and turns of the investigation in the best traditions of the true crime narrative. The research is meticulous and the account of the murder investigation, detailed, painstaking and fascinating." - Justin Davenport, Evening Standard

"Reads like a fast-paced thriller." - Ham & High

"Harding's book Hanns and Rudolf was a marvel of investigative research. Blood on the Page is similarly diligent and thorough in its approach" -  Ian Thomason,  Financial Times

"One of the most intriguing murders cases in British legal history. There are enough questions raised by Hardings meticulous research to suggest that reasonable doubt stills hangs over the conviction." - Jewish Chronicle

"Absolutely gripping throughout and builds to a devastating conclusion. Just brilliant." -  Allan Little 

Audio:

Here is the interview that Thomas did with Nick Garnett about BLOOD ON THE PAGE on BBC Radio 5 on 15 Feb 2019.

It runs almost 30 minutes long.

BBC Radio 5 "Blood on the Page"