The Executioner's Bible

It is little over forty years since the gallows was last used in Great Britain, and the secrets behind the men who pulled the lever and dropped the condemned to their deaths are to this day shrouded in mystery. Despite often being unassuming and quiet professionals, men like Albert Pierrepoint and William Billington made a name for themselves in a world hungry for salacious and gruesome news. Read about the bungling hangmen sacked for incompetence; drunken executioners dismissed for brawling; one hangman driven to suicide and another who 'got out just in time', to the last men to pull the lever at the height of the swinging sixties. The Executioner's Bible tells their fascinating, sometimes repugnant, always enthralling story.

Steve Fielding is the author of several historical crime titles including Pierrepoint: A Family of Executioners, The Hangman's Record and The Murder Casebook series. He has worked as the Historical Consultant on the Discovery Channel series and has contributed to several magazines such as The Criminologist, True Crime and Master Detective.