[1] Masters "grew up in a prefab on the Old Kent Road",[1] Southwark, south London, to a "hunchback" mother with a weak chest, and an illegitimate "no hoper" father.
Briefly a teacher in France (as part of his degree), he worked for a time as a travel guide "organising educational tours for American students".
[1] Early in his career, Masters wrote books on French writers such as Molière (1970) and Camus, among others, without any pretence at them having any real originality.
[7] Masters was accused of being overly sympathetic to Nilsen at the time his book was first published in the UK, a view he rejects in his memoir.
[5] Following the book on Nilsen, Masters wrote The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer and She Must Have Known: The Trial of Rosemary West.