Blood on the page is brutal. I like true crime books and podcasts but this was extraordinary. I wasn't ready for the amount of work that Harding put into the research of this book. I don't know if I could recommend it to anyone in my immediate circle because of the detail but it is definitely a great addition to the true crime genre.

I adored this by Harding and this one is no different. Absolutely excellent book and a brilliant read. Recommend!

This book covers the true and very strange case of the murder of Allan Chappelow, found murdered in his dilapidated house in Hampstead with Chinese immigrant Wang Yam subsequently found guilty of his murder. A resident of Hampstead, the author became fascinated by this story and decided to dig deeper and try to untangle the complicated web of a court case which left the public in the dark for large sections of the proceedings.

Allan Chappelow was a hoarder, a recluse by choice and an expert on George Bernard Shaw. When his bank became concerned about someone trying to access his accounts and cash cheques in his name the police were called and a search of Chappelow's cluttered house uncovered his beaten body. Enquiries lead the police to Wang Yam and this is where things start to get murky. The court case is one of very few to be heard "in camera" meaning certain sections cannot be reported or even alluded to. The press can't speculate on what the reasons for this are leaving everyone in the dark, including the author. It can make the book a frustrating read at points, the author constantly finds himself up against a brick wall of silence when trying to access documents. Wang Yam is a willing participant though, protesting his innocence he is far from a trustworthy figure but doesn't strike the author as a cold blooded murderer. He happily corresponds with the author and Harding obviously has a lot of sympathy for his plight.

It's an evenly written book. Harding has obviously done an enormous amount of research, at points it can be a little suffocating (I think I could have lived without the in depth description of a bus ride Allan Chappelow took in America, for example) but it seems that the author took more time to get to know the victim that the police did. He disputes their painting of Allan Chappelow as a lonesome recluse, pointing out that in his last months he undertook a trip to America to see family. There's many unanswered questions and some dispute about who the Chinese man in some CCTV or on the phone really was. I did question Wang Yam's conviction but I'm sure there will invariably be a podcast or article which will paint the other side and prove me wrong. As a piece of writing it was very absorbing and I enjoyed the author's notes at the end of each chapter of various leads he needs to chase up and small aisles. He writes about Allan Chappelow and Wang Yam with tastefully and with compassion. Even if you don't normally read true crime I would still recommend this. Both fascinating touching.

I received a ARC from Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for a fair review.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Right from the beginning, there was a concern in the back of my mind that ultimately I would be disappointed because of reasons shared in the blurb about the hearing having been held in a closed court; there are elements to this case that we just cannot know. Nevertheless, the blurb had me hooked and I came out of this book delightfully surprised. The author was thorough in his writing and made many parts feel fictitious in his recounting of each character telling their own stories, and even what they looked like. Harding jumped between the investigators' work in 2006 and the effects of communist China on Wang Yam in the 80s, and his life through to 2017, which I thought was a good idea; the structuring of the chapters kept me engaged; when something made me gasp in the investigation in 2006 Harding would swap to the 90s and Wang Yam's desperate attempt to escape China.
I appreciated the 'case notes' sections as it meant that I knew the author's thoughts throughout. I actually found out a lot about the judicial system in this book; the courtroom drama was thrilling and I sped through it.
Taking into consideration the fact that Wang Yam's story doesn't yet have an ending I think Harding ended Blood on the Page perfectly. He added a conclusion to the whole affair stating his opinion, which is logical and I think a possible scenario.
I enjoyed this book very much, and this story will undoubtedly stay in my mind for a while.

This is a story with so many complexities that I was pretty intrigued to find out more about it. The author did in fact vaguely know the victim Alan Chappelow which gives the story an interesting angle and Harding seems incredible committed to investigating this case from start to finish. A lot of research has clearly gone into this book which I always appreciate in a true-crime book. It did take me a while to get into the story, there are a great deal of intricate details and sometimes the book felt slightly bogged down by this. At times in the first half I did feel my attention wandering a little but as I read further and became immersed in the case I was much more gripped by the tale. The backgrounds of both the victim and the suspect were engrossing and filled with intrigue and complexity. This added a great deal of interest to the story and made me want to find out what had really happened to the victim that lead to his violent death.
I found the authors case notes in between each chapter fascinating. It gave a bit of insight into how one goes about researching and writing about a complicated court case. Unfortunately due to the case being held partly ‘in camera’, the press, public and author could not find out pertinent facts about the trial. This left gaping holes in my understanding of the story and because of this, there was no real closure or explanation for what really happened. This is not the fault of the author, and he does voice his own frustration several times, but it did make the whole story even more complicated. I thought this was a well written and highly interesting book. However the feeling I was left with at the end of the book was unfortunately one of confusion. I was left with more questions than answers.

The murder of Allan Chapellow is arguably one of the strangest and most compelling cases in recent British legal history. An elderly and reclusive man, Chappelow lived in a dilapidated house in Hampstead, on a street where properties sell for millions. A writer, he had penned biographies of George Bernard Shaw, though he hadn't produced much in his later years. Sadly, he was to meet a violent end, bludgeoned to death in his house, his body dripped in candle wax and buried under a heap of his own manuscripts. The man convicted of the murder, Wang Yam, is a Chinese immigrant who claims to be a descendent of Ren Bishi, a leading member of the Chinese Communist Party at the time of Mao. Indeed, the man Wang Yam claims is his grandfather was Mao's right hand man. But what really sets this case apart, is that a section of the trial was heard in camera, behind closed doors, on the grounds of national security. Not only is this the first murder trial in UK history to be held partly in secret on the grounds of national security, but a remarkable court order is in place that prevents the media, not just from reporting why this might be, but from speculating as to the reasons behind it.

Harding's interest in the story stems from the fact that he grew up on the street and knew the victim as the odd character who lived a few doors from him. An author and journalist, Harding has written for national newspapers and has published a number of titles on recent German history. I haven't read any of his previous work myself, but they were well received. This is important because Blood on the Page has come in for some criticism.

In Blood on the Page, Harding details the murder, delves into Allan Chappelow's life and that of Wang Yam, and follows the investigation to trial and eventual conviction. He details the various appeals that Wang Yam and his lawyers have mounted and tells us how he has acclimatised to prison life. In all of this he does a good job and he's certainly talented as both a writer and biographer. Where this book falls down somewhat is in the injection of his own voice into the narrative, for throughout, Harding's views and opinions come off the page to an unusual degree.

Wang Yam was convicted of Allan Chapellow's murder on the strength of purely circumstantial evidence. There was no forensic evidence linking him to the crime scene. There was however compelling evidence - CCTV images for example - of him using Allan's credit cards and accessing his bank accounts in the days after his death. Wang Yam claims that this was because he had fallen in with Chinese gangsters who had provided these to him and that he did not murder Allan. The problem with this however is that Wang Yam quickly proved himself to be a fantasist, at least he seems to have a difficult relationship with the truth. When questioned by the police, and later in court, he couldn't identify the gangsters he was supposedly in hoc to. In fact, his whole life's history appears to be uncertain, it's not even clear that he's telling the truth about being related to Ren Bishi.

That said, there is some evidence that he might be telling the truth about the murder of Allan Chapellow, or at least that we ought to pause before declaring him guilty. Apart from the fact that there was no forensics to tie him to the scene, cigarette butts littered the room that Allan's body was found, the DNA from which matched neither Allen nor Wang Yam. A neighbour came forward to say that weeks after Wang Yam was jailed, he was threatened with a knife by a man on his doorstep rifling through his mail. While a witness gave evidence at his appeal that he had met a man matching Allan's description, using the same name, cruising Hampstead Heath for sex. Might Allen have been murdered by someone else, perhaps someone he brought back from the Heath? If so, Wang Yam is only guilty of theft and fraud.

There are certainly questions to answer in this case and looming over it all is the national security concerns, whatever they might be, which led the trial to be heard, in part, in secrecy. We are likely never to know what these were, what they relate to, or how this knowledge might alter our understanding of the case. Some reviews have said this absence makes the author's task impossible and that Blood on the Page suffers as a result. I think that's unfair and that Harding has produced a compelling and readable account of the case regardless.

More problematic to my mind is his seeming determination to believe Wang Yam's account. Again, other reviewers have accused Harding of naiveté, even gullibility. While this might be a little harsh, he does seem to be blind to Wang Yam's deeply flawed character. To Harding's great credit he recounts Wang Yam's erraticism faithfully. For example, he tells us Wang Yam's lawyers don't believe much of what he said, while when he contacted his supposed cousin, she told him that Wang Yam was not related to her. But despite this, he presses on with his faith in his subject regardless. This is most apparent in these odd sections of the book at the end of each chapter, which he titles "case notes" where he outlines his thoughts as his investigations unfold. These are totally superfluous to the text as a whole and serve nothing more than to give the impression Harding's a bit of a naïf.

In conclusion, this is a well written book and a good account of a very strange case indeed. It's a complicated case and this review can't possibly do justice to all the evidence that Harding has marshalled, and to be fair to him, presented to the reader in a thoroughly readable and accessible manner. Wang Yam might or might not be innocent of Allen Chapellow's murder and after reading this book I certainly have been left with some doubts. But equally, Harding's is not a sympathetic portrayal. Wang Yam appears dishonest and a compulsive liar. While this in itself does not mean he's guilty of murder, equally I did not reach the end of this title as sure as the author of his innocence.

Fascinating true crime which is well written and thrilling. We will never know why the trial was in secret for this liar - who I'm not sure is a murderer. Addictive. Must read for all true crime fans (such as myself!)

This should have been a fascinating look at the trial of a Chinese man for the brutal murder of an 86 year old man in Hamsptead in 2006, but for some reason, it just didn't quite grab me. I liked the structure of the narrative, following chronologically and featuring relevant in depth looks at the background of the two men, Wang Yam and Allan Chapelow and I also liked the inclusion of the author's case notes in between the chapters. Unfortunately, I think that the book suffers from the fact that much of the information brought up during the trial cannot be included or even speculated about, due to certain portions of the trial being conducted in secret. As a result, the book doesn't really introduce any new theories or evidence and is therefore only a re-telling of the process followed. I suspect that the author was frustrated by his inability to dig further and perhaps he should have waited until the removal of the gag order before publishing. Overall, this is a well researched book but it is a little bit dull.
I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Thomas Harding is an excellent author and I have enjoyed previous books by him, such as, “Hanns and Rudolf,” which looked at his own family history. As such, I was pleased to have the chance to review his latest work, looking at a true murder case. Now, I believe that Thomas Harding could probably make reading the phone directory interesting and he drew me in immediately, writing about eighty six year old, Allan Chappelow, being discovered dead in his house. Allan Chappelow was a reclusive author, a hoarder and a man whose house was in such a state of disrepair that it took police officers days to locate his battered body – even though they were standing in the very room where he was, eventually found.

Harding teases out this story and makes the background of this mystery fascinating. He reveals that, as a child, Chappelow was a near neighbour of his – the rather odd, eccentric man he lived near for eighteen years of his life. Of course, this immediately draws us into the book and, by far the most interesting part of this book, is the author recreating the life of story of Chappelow himself; a rather tragic, lonely figure, who was fascinated by George Bernard Shaw and whose early promise descended into a rather shambolic existence.

Where this book fails rather, is in the true crime element of the book. The police were alerted about Allan Chappelow by his bank, who were concerned about unusual activity on his account. It seemed that Chappelow was a victim of identity fraud and Wang Yam was arrested and convicted for his death. Harding suggests that Wang Yam was a bit player used by a gang of fraudsters, who argues that he never met Chappelow. The real problem is that the murder trial excluded the press and public; unusual but sometimes necessary due to issues of national security or for the protection of witnesses. As such, there is much information that Harding is not able to see, or use, and that makes this book a little bit of a damp squid in terms of revealing sudden information to solve the case, or even speculating on what could have happened.

As someone who had an elderly, handicapped family member, became a victim of identity fraud, I suspect I am not going to be overly sympathetic to Wang Yam, regardless of whether he was guilty or not. Fraud is not a victimless crime and Yam was involved in some way, with the target an elderly and vulnerable victim. Saying that, of course it is not a good thing for a man to be unjustly accused of a much more serious crime than the one for which he (or she) has been found guilty of. However, I finished this unsure of where the guilt actually lay and Harding did not have enough evidence to convince me that he had solved the crime. For me, the story of Allan Chappelow was what made this book came alive and it was fascinating to read of his past. Although I was very interested, ultimately, I felt it was a good work of journalism, but less successful as a true crime book. I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.

Thomas Harding is undoubtedly a great journalist, researcher and author but he has somewhat cut himself off at the ankles in choosing this particular murder case.

A large part of the attraction for Harding in homing in on this murder case is that a chunk of the (two) trial(s) were held 'in camera,' that is, they were held in private and none of the evidence was released into the public domain. So far, so interesting. However, upon deciding that some of the evidence would be 'in camera' the presiding judge ruled that the media could not report on the private sections of the trial nor could they speculate on the reasons for the privacy.

Harding himself, in his epilogue, admits that this gagging order was like a brick wall around the case, he could not get beyond it nor could he even speculate on theories, lest he risk being held in contempt of court.

So, the main hook into this case is firewalled and out of sight, it leaves a strange and ineffable atmosphere over the whole piece. Harding chases the story down, points out what does seem like flaws in the prosecution case and gives good rationale as to why he thinks the conviction of Wang Yam is unsafe. However, despite his impeccable logic and very endearing writing style I could not wholly invest in his line of reasoning as there was always the spectre of the 'in camera' sections of the trial which must have had some bearing on the outcome.

This is not a straightforward case and the gagging order seems to have further confused matters. This in itself could be argued to be an unfair advantage for the prosecution, as indeed the point was during appeal.

This is a good book, well written, well researched and explains complex areas of law in an easy to digest manner. However, the banner headline that lures the reader in turns out to be something that, legally, the author cannot dissect or speculate about, so that the entire work necessarily turns into something else.

Still, an interesting read.

What a disappointment this book is! Harding is an excellent investigative journalist but the problem here is that the trial with which he's concerned was held in secret and under a 'gagging order' which forbids anyone to even speculate why that was so. As Harding himself says, any partial alternative view 'is speculation. A decade since the killing of Allan Chappelow, little is certain'.

Given that the usual reason for this kind of order is the protection of national security, there must be far more to the story than Harding can even speculate about since nothing in the current story has anything to do with national politics. Harding does make some guesses about Chappelow's personal life but they're unsurprising, and don't really fit with the details of the murder. Even that, though, is less full that I expected: for example, there is talk of 'burns' which don't seem to fit with the scenario that Harding tentatively outlines but we're not told enough to even judge that.

That there was more going on than came out in the public trial seems almost certain - but, through no fault of his own, Harding cannot either investigate or write about it. Very frustrating.

An engaging and thought provoking true story of tragic murder.
June 2006 the body of millionaire author was found battered to death in his own home. Allen Chappelow was a keen photographer and author yet in his later life he was an 86 year old recluse who spent most his time in his run down home in Hampstead London.
The murder trail was a massive case back in 2006 and more so on how it was handle, the case was held in secret, former home secretary Jacqui Smith took the very unique view that she needed to intervene for the good of national security.
Wang Yam has always denied the charges against him and due to his use of the victim credit cards he was charged with the murder, there was very little in the case that revealed how or if at all the two men were connected, however evidence emerge that Wang was an MI6 informant.
I love how well this book was written and explored the lives behind the two men, using past records, letters the victim wrote to family and how people around each men shaped their adult lives.
This book shows a very unique case in our British justice system and if you love true crime this is defiantly a book for you.