The Fox and the Flies - Hardcover

Onselen, Charles Van

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0224079298 ISBN 13: 9780224079297

Publisher: Jonathan Cape Ltd, 2007

Synopsis

At the end of the nineteenth century European pimps and 'white slavers' established a hugely successful global market for commercial sex. Criminal syndicates from Buenos Aires to London and from Cape Town to New York were able to organise the seduction or rape of women in under-developed parts of Europe and their 'export' as prostitutes to meet an insatiable demand for sexual services. For three turbulent decades before the First World War, Joseph Silver - brothel-owner, pimp and trafficker in women on four continents - was central to this hidden world of betrayal, intrigue, lust and sexual slavery. Burglar, gun-runner, jewel-thief, rapist, safe-cracker and sodomist, Silver's notoriety was captured in the most confidential correspondence of a dozen countries in the western world. What those in charge of law-enforcement agencies kept to themselves, however, was how their officers had attempted to use Silver as an informer to infiltrate syndicates built on 'vice', only to have him outwit them as he moved in the dangerous space between police and prostitutes. A disturbed adolescent, youthful predator and adult misogynist driven by dark biblical and medieval obsessions, Silver's mental universe remained largely hidden from his family, other gangsters and police handlers. In this first reconstruction of the life of a dangerous psychopath, Charles van Onselen situates the private life of one man amidst the demi-monde of the Atlantic world to identify the most infamous serial killer of all time - for Joseph Silver's darkest secret of all lay in London, in Whitechapel, in the autumn of 1888.

About this title

Review:

`compelling reading' -- The Observer

"A fascinating account of the life of a master criminal." -- Herald

"a remarkable feat of reclamation... Silver remains shadowy, but
readers who would like a Cook's tour of crime in the world's capitals at
the turn of the last century could not do better than this book" -- Daily Mail

"a triumphant achievement" -- Sunday Times

"heroic feat of archival research and a major addition of our
understanding of the global sex trade"
-- Scotland on Sunday

'A triumph of research and persistence' -- Sunday Telegraph

`...explores with sympathy...detailed decription...'
-- Literary Review

`nicely-produced, lavishly-illustrated'
-- Sunday Herald

`the book remains an extraordinary feat of erudition.'
-- TLS

From the Publisher:

A PORTRAIT FROM HELL. In breathtaking detail, Charles van Onselen recontructs the life of an unknown man - a psychopath responsible for one of the most notorious sex crimes of all time.

About this edition

• Publisher: Jonathan Cape Ltd
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0224079298
• ISBN 13: 9780224079297
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 672