In March 1999, Manchester general practitioner Harold Shipman was charged with the murders of four of his patients and a total of 15 in all. He pleaded Not Guilty. Each of Shipman's alleged victims was middle-aged or elderly and each was his patient and neighbour. The macabre exhumations of some of the bodies devastated the suburban community of Hyde in Greater Manchester, and it is the authors' inside knowledge of the region that provides the context for their investigation of the case.