A Desperate Business

The gripping story of one of the most frightening murder cases in British criminal history, which sparked, at the time, the biggest manhunt the country had ever seen

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‘Simon Farquhar succeeds brilliantly (and with real empathy for all concerned) in setting the story in its historical, social and emotional context, with the victim and her family always at the heart of his writing … A Desperate Business is an absolute must-read.’ - Carol Ann Lee, the bestselling author of The Murders at White House Farm

Winter 1969. Rupert Murdoch, newly arrived in Britain, has bought The Sun and the News of the World, immediately provoking outrage by serialising the sensational memoirs of Christine Keeler. Watching him being interviewed on television, two men hatch a plot to kidnap Murdoch’s wife for a million-pound ransom.

But the plan goes wrong.

Following Murdoch’s Rolls-Royce to a house in Wimbledon, they are unaware that he has gone to Australia for Christmas and loaned the car to his friend and colleague, Alick McKay. On Monday, 29 December 1969, Alick arrives home to find his wife, Muriel, has vanished.

She was never seen again.

Acclaimed author and journalist Simon Farquhar has spent three years investigating one of the most frightening and perplexing mysteries in British criminal history, which began with a case of mistaken identity and led to one of the first convictions for murder without a body being found. Presenting a wealth of new information and, for the first time, a possible solution, A Desperate Business is a meticulous and sensitive account of a tragedy. It is a story of greed, unimaginable cruelty, and newspaper rivalry, but most of all, the story of an adored woman who never came home.