Manuel: Portrait of a Serial Killer

by Allan Nicol

The true story behind the notorious serial killer Peter Manuel, and Detective William Muncie's quest to bring him to justice, recently dramatised in the major ITV drama In Plain Sight .

In a two-year killing spree, Peter Manuel terrorised a city . As the people of Glasgow held their breath and anxiously awaited news, Peter Manuel killed Anne Kneilands, Marion Watt, her daughter Vivienne and her sister Margaret, Isabelle Cooke and the Smart family - all in cold blood . But what drove him to commit such barbaric crimes? And could the police have caught him sooner?

Portrait of a Serial Killer tells the full story from his birth in the USA and his love of gangster movies to his life of crime that would ultimately end on the gallows after one of the most sensational trials in legal history. Revealing new facts about the case and the myths that surround it, this is the definitive account of one of the most notorious criminals in history - Peter Manuel, serial killer .

Genres: True Crime

481 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 19, 2008

Reviews

[Greta Halliday · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very well written and in depth factual book. Not a very enjoyable read but a very enlightening one.

[Christine South · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is very in-depth & clearly a lot of research went into it but sometimes it was a bit too much in depth & there was a lot that didn’t need to be in the book or it didn’t need to be spoken about in the level of detail & at times it was quite boring to read because the author was rambling on & it was hard to stay interested but I got there in the end.

[Fran Cormack · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found it hard to finish this book. Dry. Dull. And quite repetitive. The TV drama was much better.

[K.C. Murdarasi · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half was pretty interesting, although written in a hackneyed style. The second half is a blow by blow, day by day account of the trial that got very boring indeed. I gave up.