Neil Root

I am fascinated by crime, psychology and history, and I write both crime non-fiction (true crime) and crime fiction.

The Cleveland Street Scandal: How the Victorian Establishment was Almost Brought to its Knees

Published by The History Press, June 2025

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cleveland-Street-Scandal-Victorian-Establishment/dp/1803996641

‘The privilege and hypocrisy of the Victorian Age are on full display in this riveting tale of sex, coverup, abuse of power, and justice denied. Thanks to Neil Root’s masterful exposé of a scandal that rocked the Royal Family and the British establishment, the whole truth has finally come out.’

— Dean Jobb, bestselling author of ‘A Gentleman and a Thief’ and ‘The Case of the Murderous Dr Cream’

‘A remarkable, impressively researched and readable tale, as relevant today as it was in Victorian times.’

— Duncan Campbell, author of ‘Underworld’

‘A fascinating and meticulously researched look at the biggest gay scandal to hit the headlines until Oscar Wilde. Absolutely a must-read.’

— Paul Donnelley, author of ‘501 Most Notorious Crimes’

‘I was completely drawn into Neil Root’s compelling and deeply researched account of one of the first queer scandals of the modern age. From London telegraph boys to ambitious newspaper editors, and members of Queen Victoria’s own family, Root recounts the complex web of political intrigue that made the Cleveland Street affair emblematic of its age – a case that set in motion nearly a century of policing that ruined the reputation and lives of queer men. With a historian’s eye for detail and a journalists approach to story, Root brings to life not only the many characters who were drawn into the scandal, either publicly and privately, but also makes abundantly clear how charges of “gross indecencies” in the heart of the British Empire depended on one’s power and privilege.’

— James Polchin, Ph.D., Clinical Professor, New York University and author of ‘Shadow Men: A Tangled Tale of Murder, Media, and Privilege that Scandalized Jazz Age America’

Shadowside

A Novel

Published by Dime Crime, March 2023

ENGLAND 1936:

The Fleet Street journalist Harry Rose leaves his natural habitat of London and arrives at the Sunnyside asylum on the south coast in search of a missing girl, who has vanished without trace…Both professionally and personally, Rose feels compelled to find out what has happened to her.

But he soon becomes enmeshed in the tentacles of manipulation and mystery within a dangerous world called Shadowside.

Some stories need to be told…But will Rose find the girl and live to tell the story?

 ‘Shadowside is a well-researched historical mystery with an interesting storyline.’

Martin Edwards, Crime Novelist and Author of The Life of Crime

A ***** Review from the Daily Express, August 2023: https://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/books/1807757/Shadowside-review-murder-novel-neil-root

Available to buy here and at bookshops: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0BWKYSVSB/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i7

Crossing the Line of Duty: How Corruption, Greed & Sleaze Brought Down the Flying Squad, published by The History Press, March 2019

Crossing the Line of Duty explores, for the first time, how the Sweeney (the Flying Squad), the Elite Serious Organised Crime Unit and the Obscene Publications Squad (the Dirty Squad) descended to unprecedented levels of corruption in the 1960s and 1970s, leading the infamous gangster Charlie Richardson to say that ‘the most lucrative, powerful and extensive protection racket ever to exist was administered by the Metropolitan Police’. Sir Robert Mark, who became commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and cleaned it up, said that it was ‘the most routinely corrupt organisation in London’. During his time as commissioner, 50 officers were prosecuted, while 478 took early retirement. Using Metropolitan Police files obtained under Freedom of Information, which have not been accessed since the 1970s, author Neil Root can finally tell the story of how both the Flying Squad and Obscene Publications Squad of the Metropolitan Police became systemically corrupt in the post-war years, and how they reached a nadir in the mid-1970s. It also shows how this culture of corruption has been a blueprint for Met Police corruption today, and how the enormous near-autonomous power wielded by elite squads allowed the corruption to fester and grow. See https://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/publication/crossing-the-line-of-duty/9780750989206/

The Murder Gang: Fleet Street’s Elite Group of Reporters in the Golden Age of Tabloid Crime, published by The History Press, April 2018

They were an elite group of renegade Fleet Street crime reporters covering the most notorious British crime between the mid-1930s and the mid-1960s. It was an era in which murder dominated the front and inside pages of the newspapers – the ‘golden age’ of tabloid crime. Members of the ‘Murder Gang’ knew one another well. They drank together in the same Fleet Street pubs, but they were also ruthlessly competitive in pursuit of the latest scoop. It was said that when the Daily Express covered a big murder story they would send four cars: one containing their reporters, the other three to block the road at crime scenes to stop other rivals getting through. As a matter of course, ‘Murder Gang’ members listened in to police radios, held clandestine meetings with killers on the run, made huge payments to murderers and their families – and jammed potatoes into their rivals’ exhaust pipes so their cars wouldn’t start. These were just the tools of the trade; it was a far cry from modern reporting. Here, Neil Root delves into their world, examining some of the biggest crime stories of the era and the men who wrote them. In turns fascinating, shocking and comical, this tale of true crime, media and social history will have you turning the pages as if they were those newspapers of old.

See https://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/publication/the-murder-gang/9780750983716/

CWA Awards

• CWA Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction - Longlisted

Books by Neil Root

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