The Knife Went in: Real Life Murderers and Our Culture

About this book

More than half a century ago George Orwell wrote an essay about the decline of the English murder. Since the 1990s Theodore Dalrymple has witnessed its modern variety in real life. For over a quarter of a century he has treated and examined many more murderers than most as a prison doctor psychiatrist and court expert in some of Britains most deprived areas. Here he delves deep into his life of personal encounters with the murderous underclass to determine what has changed overtime and what has not. Inimitably his unique portrait of modern criminals is at the same time a parable of dysfunction in our own culture. Through his experiences he exposes todays vicious cult of denial blaming and psychobabble that hides behind a corrosive sentiment of caring. Illustrated with scores of eye-opening true-life vignettes The Knife Went In is in turn hilariously funny chillingly horrifying and always unexpectedly revealing. Taken together this lifetime of experience is a clear and unsentimental mirror in which we view modern progress without its varnish.