The Wicked Mr Hall - The Memoirs of the Butler Who Loved to Kill

Book excerpt: Growing up in Glasgow in the 1930s, Roy Archibald Hall was a natural thief. After moving down to London, Hall who was bisexual became a familiar figure in the capital's glitzy, underground gay scene. Due to his lucrative criminal career, he led an extravagant lifestyle. Eventually the law caught up with him and he was arrested. He spent the majority of the next two decades of his life in a cell. Upon release from prison in 1975, he returned to Scotland and found employment with Lady Margaret Hudson, working as a butler at Kirleton House. David Wright, a former lover from his time in jail, arrived on the scene and was hired as a gamekeeper. The two men fell out over the theft of a diamond ring, and a vicious argument ensued. They went on a shooting trip to clear the air a walk from which Wright would never return. After the killing, Hall moved back to London, where he teamed up with small-time criminal Michael Kitto. Working again as a butler, he and Kitto then murdered Hall's new employers, an aged former Labour MP and his wife. But it did not end there by the time he was finally arrested, he had carried out two more brutal murders, including that of his own half-brother. Considering the nature of his crimes it was obvious that Hall would never be released. Before he died, however, he decided to set the record straight and write his memoirs. This honest, harrowing, and chilling book is the result."