MANY FACES OF CRIME: A True Detective Chronicle

Belfast-born Detective Constable Dennis McGookin realised there was no future for him in Northern Ireland when his uncle's house was bombed, thankfully when it was empty. So he moved to Kent and found himself investigating some of the most challenging cases of the later 20th century. This account of real cases, with some details changed where protection of identity is still necessary, forms a fascinating insight into modern police methods. McGookin starts with a revenge attack: a boy was killed by a lorry driver who failed to stop at the scene of the crime. In the subsequent months the boy's grave was desecrated, and his father finally took the law into his own hands and shot the perpetrator, who survived the attack. It was right that the law had to take its course, though the dad was eventually acquitted. Another traffic-related investigation was the road rage killer Kennth Noye who fled to Spain under an assumed identity. The victim's girlfriend travelled to Spain with the police and identified Noye, but the task of proving his identity was no easy matter, while Danielle, the girlfriend, received threats. Justice eventually prevailed and Noye got 20 years. Perhaps the most fascinating, and the most horrifying, is the investigation of the disappearance and death of Diana Goldsmith. The police believed her death was ordered by her estranged husband, who asked his friend Fitzpatrick to hire a hitman. Fitzpatrick eventually assisted the prosecution by explaining how he buried the body in a friend's garden, telling him he needed to get rid of a stash of cannabis. The discovery of the body initiated a further investigation, but McGookin's hope of convicting Goldsmith was thwarted when the hitman's driver told a different story in court. A completely different case was the death of 58 Chinese men in a lorry in June 2000, the biggest case of fatal human smuggling in the UK. A well-written and highly informative memoir. 272pp, monochrome photos.