Death in the Air

London in 1952 was a still recovering from the devastation wrought by World War II: rationing was still in effect, rates of crime and unemployment were high, and the national economy was in shambles. In an effort to repay its massive war debt, the British government was selling its clean-burning coal to America, and Londoners were forced to make do with the cheap brown coal. That winter, as the weather turned bitter, buses, trucks and automobiles, and thousands of coal-burning hearths belched particulate matter into the air. But the smog that descended on December 5th of 1952 was different; it was a sulfurous type of smog that held the city hostage for five long days. Mass transit ground to a halt, criminals roamed the streets, and some 12,000 people, many of them elderly or ill, died. What would later be called the Great Smog of 1952 remains one of the greatest environmental disasters of all time. That same December, there was another killer at large in London. John Reginald Christie murdered at least seven women in his flat in Notting Hill--luring women to his home with the promise of a home remedy for bronchitis, instructing his victims to inhale carbon-monoxide laden coal gas until they passed out. He then raped and strangled them, burying two in the garden, stashing several more in a papered-over kitchen alcove, and his wife of 34 years beneath the floorboards of their parlor. The arrest of the "Beast of Rillington Place" caused a media frenzy; moreover, Christie's role in sending an innocent man to the gallows was the impetus for the abolition of the death penalty in the UK. The smog, meanwhile, was slow to be implicated. Indeed, the British government did their level best to disavow any connection between the death rate and the air quality, blaming the sudden spike in deaths on fictitious flu epidemic. Eventually, however, the media and one crusading Member of Parliament launched a fight that would be the beginning of the global clean air movement. The Clean Air Act of 1956 was a direct result of the Great Smog, and that legislation provided a model for the rest of the world, including the U.S.In a braided narrative that draws on extensive interviews, never-before published material and archival research, Kate Winkler Dawson captivatingly recounts the intersecting stories of the these two killers and their crimes.

"Death in the Air by Kate Winkler Dawson is a fascinating, beautifully researched, and compulsively readable book, which tells the entwined stories of the Great London Smog of 1952 and a serial killer, John Reginald Christie, who exploited the fog as a cloak for murder. This is a portrait of London at one of its darkest and most desperate times. Not since The Devil in the White City has a book told such a harrowing tale."--Douglas Preston, #1 NewYork Times bestselling author of The Monster of Florence and TheLost City of the Monkey God, "A deranged maniac plays Fleet Street's reporters like a fiddle at the same time that an industrial-age climate disaster explodes into a full-blown humanitarian crisis. Richly detailed and shrewdly told, Kate Winkler Dawson's Death in the Air is as suspenseful as it is chillingly relevant."--Robert Kolker, NewYork Times bestselling author of Lost Girls, "A London peasouper hangs over the city as a serial killer stalks its streets! This is a true tale of criminal violence against the backdrop of one of the worst environmental disasters of all time, one that led to the death of 12,000 people. It is a narrative that has relevance to the world's pollution problems of today and is also an engrossing read."--Christine L. Corton, author of London Fog: The Biography, "Dawson deftly weaves the tales together in an engrossing narrative that reads like a thriller.... readers will remain hooked on this compelling story and will eagerly await Dawson's next book."--Kirkus, "Dawson has reached deep into the past and pulled forth a spellbinding, darkly gothic tale of two serial killers--only one of which was human. Death in the Air surprised me, entranced me, and changed the way I see one of the most urgent issues facing the world today."--AlexandriaMarzano-Lesnevich, author of The Fact of a Body

Kate Winkler Dawson is a seasoned documentary producer, whose work has appeared in The New York Times, WCBS News and ABC News Radio, Fox News Channel, United Press International, PBS NewsHour, and Nightline. She teaches journalism at The University of Texas at Austin.