The London Underground Serial Killer by Geoff Platt

 The London Underground Serial Killer by Geoff Platt tells the story of the murderer Kieran Patrick Kelly who began his murdering career by pushing one of his friends off a London Underground platform in front of a train killing this friend. This was after his friend supposedly figured out Kelly's secret regarding his sexuality. Kelly went on to murder other individuals in the same manner, but it was now people he did not know and had no connection to. Kelly's career of murder ended when he strangled a cellmate to death.

This is a fascinating book looking at a less well-known murderer but also educates the reader on more criminological and legal facts making it useful for the layman. There are also good details throughout regarding the case in question. The book is very holistic having looked at many aspects of the case and London including the different underground tube stations and parks and commons within London.

However, it is highly disappointing to have to say that much of this book seems to be irrelevant and somewhat boring. There is a whole chapter dedicated to the different parks and commons within London. This may be included due to the time Kelly spent his life as a vagrant within the vagrant community. But Kelly nor his crimes are not mentioned once in this chapter and the details are definitely not relevant to his case. The same can be said about the chapter on the tube. This mainly just gives a general outline of the London Underground and says little if anything about Kelly's crimes. There are also examples of contradictory language within this book, for example, in one sentence it said that criminal X was a serial killer but then in the next sentence immediately after it said X was not a serial killer.

I think the main problem with this book is that there is not enough information or details which is very disappointing as it could have otherwise been a good book. One simple change that would be welcome for this book is to apply each chapter to Kelly and his crime in order to make it more relevant. Less than half of the book is actually about Kelly and his crimes but when we do get to this part of the book it is rather interesting, despite the continuous repetition. This is another point to make, the author simply repeats the same information in each chapter, which may be forgiven simply because there is not enough detail or information to this case to really write a whole book about it. This book may have been better as just one chapter as part of a bigger book of unheard-of cases.

It is with regret that I have to rate this book 1 star as although parts of it are enjoyable, the majority of the book is boring and dry. The book is not very relevant to Kelly and his murders and says little about each of his murders and where Kelly is discussed the vast majority is just repeating what the reader has already been told.