The Sunday Times - UK (2022-05-22)

THE

SUNDAY

TIMES

BESTSELLERS

GENERAL HARDBACKS

Last

week

Weeks in

top 10

1

Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?

Julie Smith

(M Joseph £16.99)

Clinical psychologist’s advice for

navigating life’s ups and downs

(7,795)

119

2

The Palace Papers/Tina Brown

(Century £20) Biography of the House of Windsor

in the decades since Diana’s death (3,525)

23

3

The War on the West/Douglas Murray

(HarperCollins £20) Political writer’s polemic in

defence of western civilisation and culture (2,690)

33

4

Life Is Sad and Beautiful/Hussain Manawer

(Yellow Kite £14.99) The debut poetry collection

from the poet and mental health campaigner (2,585)

—1

5

House Arrest/Alan Bennett

(Profile £6.99) Reflections on Covid-19 and

confinement from the English playwright (2,520)

42

6

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse/Charlie

Mackesy (Ebury £16.99) An illustrated

fable containing gentle life philosophy (2,350)

9 136

7

Nothing But the Truth/The Secret Barrister

(Picador £20) Stories from life as a practising

barrister working in criminal law (2,130)

—1

8

The Other Side of the Coin/Angela Kelly

(HarperCollins £25) The Queen’s personal assistant

and senior dresser shares stories and photos (1,850)

—5

9

Freezing Order/Bill Browder

(Simon & Schuster £20) Uncovering Kremlin

criminality, and life on the run from Putin (1,765)

12 4

10

This Is Not a Pity Memoir/Abi Morgan

(J Murray £14.99) The Bafta-winning screenwriter

on life after her partner’s sudden illness (1,680)

—1

GENERAL PAPERBACKS

Last

week

Weeks

in top 10

1

The Wim Hof Method

Wim Hof

(Rider & Co £8.99)

Dutch extreme athlete’s life story

and mind-over-matter philosophy

(3,780)

15

2

Storyland/Amy Jeffs

(riverrun £12.99) Art historian and printmaker’s

illustrated mythology of the British Isles (3,080)

22

3

Brothers in Arms/James Holland

(Penguin £9.99) The Sherwood Rangers tank

regiment’s war from D-Day to VE Day (2,705)

—1

4

The Seven Ages of Death/Richard Shepherd

(Penguin £9.99) The forensic pathologist shares more

insights on life, death and the human body (2,680)

—1

5

Atomic Habits/James Clear

(Random House £16.99) The minuscule changes

that can grow into life-altering outcomes (2,290)

739

6

Good Vibes, Good Life/Vex King

(Hay House £10.99) How positive thinking, self-love

and overcoming fear lead to lasting happiness (2,250)

6 116

7

The Power of Geography/Tim Marshall

(Elliott & Thompson £9.99) A study of ten regions

that could define global politics in the future (2,200)

433

8

Putin’s People/Catherine Belton

(Wm Collins £9.99) How Putin and his KGB entourage

seized power in Russia and turned on the West (2,040)

515

9

Happy Mind, Happy Life/Rangan Chatterjee

(Penguin Life £16.99) The GP shares cutting-edge

insights into the science of happiness (1,800)

37

10

A Life on Our Planet/David Attenborough

(Ebury £9.99) On his broadcasting career, the planet’s

biodiversity loss and hopes for the future (1,745)

—1

BOOKS

been “arranged”. And why

was he largely free of

bloodstains? It is almost

impossible to murder

somebody so messily

and not to get your own

clothes stained too.

And then there was

the bizarre suicide note.

Instead of the usual

expressions of sorrow and

love, Howard’s note was cold,

clinical and oddly obsessed

with irrelevant details.

The coroner’s officer for

Cheshire police, Christine

Hurst, became uneasy about

the case and kept the details

in a file marked “Special

interest”. Just in case.

Then, in November 1999,

in the same town, an elderly

couple called Donald and

Auriel Ward went missing for

several days. Two friends

called round, to find the

kitchen door unlocked and

table laid for breakfast. Four

days of newspapers had

they could see a pair of legs

hanging over the end of a bed.

Inside the bedroom they

encountered the sort of scene

even the most experienced

officer hopes never to

witness. “Bea had been

butchered... Most of her head

was soaked in blood.” Next to

her, Howard had been

suffocated with a plastic bag.

Detectives arrived and

found important clues. Bea

had been ill, and Howard was

a keen believer in euthanasia.

There was no evidence of

third-party involvement, so

Cheshire police concluded

that Howard had murdered

his wife and then killed

himself. A murder-suicide.

Yet many elements in the

case didn’t add up. Bea’s illness

was only a stomach upset.

Howard loved her deeply, so

why would he inflict such

violence on her? His left arm

was trapped under his body at

death, and looked like it had

TRUE CRIME

Christopher Hart

The Hunt for the Silver Killer
The Shocking True Story of a
Murderer Who Remains at
Large by David Collins
Simon & Schuster £18.99 pp272

On the morning of Sunday
April 28, 1996, WPC Jennifer
Eastman and PC Neal Miller
called at a semi-detached
house in the affluent town of
Wilmslow, Cheshire. Eastman
had been asked to make a
routine check on the elderly
couple who lived there,
Howard and Bea Ainsworth.
Neighbours said they hadn’t
been seen for days.
The police officers found
the kitchen door unlocked
and went in. At the top of
the stairs they found a note:
Do not rusucacate
[resuscitate]. Through a door

and nothing was stolen.

Despite certain anomalies,

another verdict of murder-

suicide was reached. This

implied that the elderly

Donald Ward had killed his

wife, then cut his own throat,

and then had the strength to

stab himself in the heart.

An investigation simply

cannot go on for ever, an

anonymous police source

reminds the Sunday Times

reporter David Collins, the

author of this book, which

began as an Insight

investigation for this

newspaper in 2020. Resources

are limited, he is told, and

more dead bodies are stacking

l Richard Osman is back. Not
only has The Thursday Murder
Club crept back into the
fiction paperbacks list, The
Man Who Died Twice has
come out in paperback too,
and jumped right to the top.

l Meanwhile, in hardback
fiction, Mick Herron’s latest
Slough House thriller, Bad
Actors, is at No 1 in its first
week. Herron’s popularity is
evergreen, but this is his first
time in the top spot, perhaps
partly thanks to Apple TV’s
adaptation of an earlier
Slough House book, Slow
Horses.

The lists are prepared by and
the data is supplied by (and
copyrighted to) Nielsen BookScan,
and are taken from the TCM for
the week ending 14/05/22.
Figures shown are sales for
the seven-day period.

Killer on the loose?

Peggie & Stanley Wilson

Kendal, Feb 18, 2011

Five dead couples, and the clues the police may have missed

MURDER-SUICIDES

OR SERIAL KILLER?

Howard & Bea Ainsworth

Wilmslow, Apr 28, 1996

accumulated inside the front

door. Upstairs they were

horrified to find the Wards

brutally murdered in their

beds. Crime-scene analysts

described the violence as

“expressive”: it went “far

beyond the mere functionality

of trying to kill”.

But again there was no

evidence of a third party, no

“fingerprint clusters” in the

bedroom, no glove marks,

24 22 May 2022