He is, on his mother's side, the great-grandson of Jakob Zeugheer-Herrmann, the first conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, who conducted for Paganini and Jenny Lind.
[citation needed] Educated by a private tutor and at Stonyhurst College, the noted Jesuit public school near Clitheroe, Lancashire.
During the Second World War, he served in the army, in France, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, and Italy, where he broadcast to the Allied Forces.
In 1960, he wrote, with Geoffrey Smerdon, the standard biography of the Liverpool-born 'nineties poet and man of letters Richard Le Gallienne: The Quest of the Golden Boy.
In 2010, he published a biography of the mysterious Teresa Higginson, a religious fanatic who believed herself to be tormented by the Devil, and who is thought by some to have a claim to sainthood.
Both these books are recognized as classics in the field of true crime history, and after being reissued as Penguin paperbacks, they enjoyed considerable sales.
His next crime book was a full-length study of the Oscar Slater case, and in 2002, he published the standard account of the fascinating Cheltenham torso mystery.