Deafening Silence

In a decade of researching and writing about true crime, author Simon Farquhar has met many police officers, many journalists and many of those personally affected by the evil that men do. They all carry with them stories of cases which the rest of the world has forgotten, but which to them remain unforgettable.

To those affected by a crime, it makes little difference whether a case has lived on in the public conscience. Famous or not, the crimes remain just as compelling, shattering, and unatonable. In A Deafening Silence, Farquhar tells those forgotten stories which have been shared with him.

Each of the chapter-long cases will be a new investigation, talking to surviving witnesses and investigators, and exploring police files and press coverage. However, he will also look at the aftermath of the cases, when the rest of the world lost interest, to tell a less-familiar story - what happened next? What became of those involved? What do these stories tell us about our changing society, our changing police force and justice system, and about our understanding of criminals and victims?

In researching the book, he has unearthed some remarkable stories. The first chapter, A Tragedy in Fairyland, tells for the first time the story of the 'Red Riding Hood Murder'. On Christmas Eve, 1970, 15-year-old Janet Stevens set out from her home in the Surrey countryside with a bagful of presents to deliver to her grandmother on the other side of the village. She never returned.

A crime committed against one person has countless victims. Tragedy spreads out like a stain. Half a century on, having exhaustively researched the story, Farquhar has pieced together a heartbreaking and inexplicable crime, exploring the effects of a senseless, devastating act on one rural English village, on those who knew and loved Janet Stevens, and on those who killed her. Where are the children whose childhood was shattered by the crime today - and where are Janet's killers? The answers are quite extraordinary.

Other cases include the still unsolved puzzle of the death of '70s sitcom star Barry Evans, and the remarkable and little-known story of David Bowie-guitarist Sean Mayes, who weeks before his death walked into a London police station to confess the family secret that he had carried with him for 20 years concerning the murder of his older brother.