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My Brother the Killer

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My Brother the Killer

By: Alix Sharkey
Narrated by: Alix Sharkey
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About this listen

‘A hugely impressive achievement.’ – Hadley Freeman, author of House of Glass

At 8.00am on Monday 18th June 2001, Danielle Jones left home dressed in her school uniform – and promptly vanished.

The 15-year old’s body was never recovered, but Danielle’s parents soon learned that her ‘Uncle Stuart’, a close family friend, had concealed a decades-long history of sexual violence against teenage girls. Despite the absence of a body, Stuart Campbell was sentenced to life in prison for Danielle’s abduction and murder. But what set him on his path as a violent sexual predator? And how do you come to terms with his actions if he’s your own flesh and blood?

In My Brother the Killer, Stuart’s older brother Alix Sharkey chronicles the violent childhood and troubled teens that helped shape a bright and handsome little boy into one of Britain’s most notorious killers, and led to one of the UK’s most unusual murder trials. Sharkey also poses several terrifying questions: what happens when you discover a deadly sexual predator in your family? Is it possible to trace the root of his heinous crimes? And with the clock ticking towards his possible parole, can Stuart Campbell be convinced to reveal the location of Danielle’s remains?

A devastating hybrid of true crime and family memoir, My Brother the Killer examines the true cost of keeping dark family secrets.

©2021 Alix Sharkey (P)2021 HarperCollins Publishers Limited Abductions, Kidnapping & Missing Persons True Crime Crime Disappearance Murder Exciting Thought-Provoking

Critic reviews

‘An incredibly heart breaking and affecting book – I gulped it down in one sitting. So powerful about childhoods destroyed by violence, so beady eyed about adults trying to escape the past. A hugely impressive achievement.’ – Hadley Freeman, author of House of Glass

‘An unflinching account… a devastating look at the violent childhood that bound brothers together and from which only one of them was able to escape.’ – Sunday Times
All stars
Most relevant
had to keep going back a bit as goes from present to past. having said that was different to hear the effects on family and not just the perpetrator. enjoyed especially what bro finds out at the end!

recommended

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A gripping story, honestly told with strong emotion.
very enjoyable , if harrowing at times
Thoroughly recommended

gripping

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This is an exceptional book, well written and appropriately narrated by the author. In writing this book as a long "letter" to his brother Stuart, Alix Sharkey is seeking a truth, an admission and a revelation of facts pertinent to the disappearance of Danielle Jones, which would allow her parents the chance bury and grieve for their daughter, lost through Stuart's crimes so many years before.

Alix portrays his own life in detail and how it has been affected by his relationship with his brother over many decades. Set against the backdrops of his ever changing world, from grim poverty in London's East End in the sixties to his life as a fashion journalist in London and Paris in the nineties and two-thousands, his reluctance to accept the dark nature of his brother, and the gradual coming to terms with the reality of it are sensitively and descriptively written, touching and engaging.

I thoroughly enjoyed it!

A memoir of our times.

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I couldn't put this down. Alix is obviously a talented writer and I could feel the turmoil seep through the pages. Every Brit will know who Danielle is and the story of this poor girl and family. This book will evoke a rollercoaster of emotions,highlight the far reaching extent and carnage of these type of evil deeds to then also show how a loving brother with the same upbringing tries to come to terms with the events that unfolded.
These days we are saturated with true crime from TV, books and podcasts, many just exploitative, offering rubberneckers the sordid details. Thankfully this book is not one of them. Instead, it offers a rare, real insight into the background of his family and those whose lives have been irrevocably affected and is written very well indeed.
Just like My Sister Milly, A TC book I shall definitely recommend.
RIP Danielle . .......

,A rare insight into a terrible tragedy

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If you’ve been aware of U.K. news during the last twenty years, you’ll likely know how this book ends, even before you pick it up. But I urge you to listen to the author, Alix Sharkey, narrating the horrific story of how his brother, Stuart Campbell, abducted and murdered his niece, Danielle Jones, on her way to her Essex school in 2001.

The book was written as an analysis of how two Tilbury brothers, growing up in a violent home, became so very different : Alix becoming one of the world’s coolest international journalists, and Stuart becoming a serial sex predator, his victims being invariably little girls whom he dressed and photographed as he posed as a fashion photographer.

But the book has a second aim - it is a love letter to Stuart, though Sharkey would not see it that way. It speaks with ultimate tenderness of this beautiful little boy who fought against his father - and the world - to protect his family. The love letter however becomes a plea to Stuart finally to admit the murder of which he was convicted and tell her family where Danielle’s body can be found.

Only someone who has loved so deeply as Sharkey could be so ultimately shocked and horrified at Campbell’s continued silence and refusal to grant Danielle’s grieving parents this release.

The story unfolds through the sixties and seventies in the docklands town of Tilbury, Essex, where you can be beaten up for nudging an elbow in a pub or for having hooded eyes. Alix Sharkey, seemingly destined to go the way of his friends, escapes the town partly because he is spurred into another world by teacher Pete and his journalist wife, Viv, who appreciate his enormous wit and intellect and spot his potential as an artist and writer. Alix is, and always was, special to them.

So while Alix goes off to the drug fuelled world of art college, and from there moves into fashion and music journalism, Stuart mines the darkness of pornography and crime, the two only meeting through Visiting Orders and swift exits to avoid the clutches of the Law.

The book is a great read, and a fabulous listen. Sharkey creates this underworld vividly and expressively, tracking through the decades and leading to this moment, when Campbell must face the ultimate Either/Or decision, to reveal or not to reveal where Danielle’s remains are hidden, before he is finally released on parole.

True Crime with Real Feeling

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