RaveThe Guardian\"...while O’Connell tells the story of the crimes, their background and their fallout with painstaking care, his approach is too restrained and self-searching for state-of-the-nation diagnostics or political allegory around class and power. He has produced a profound meditation on violence and its roots, on the skeining of barbarism and high culture, and on our urge to make sense of chaos and brutality ... The story is compellingly told, with the structure and pacing taut, the writing deft and limpid, all marked by an absorbing honesty and ethical concern. Crucially, the moral intelligence with which he treats the themes, including the plight of the victims, explodes the idea that the criminal is interesting for reasons of diabolical glamour ... this book is an outstanding achievement, and a worthy addition to literary attempts to understand the human propensity for evil.\
