There's nothing more chilling than an unsolved crime, particularly one involving direct harm to human life; be it murder or rape, these are the crimes whose effects extend furthest and cause most pain to humanity: how much worse when they go unsolved and, as such, unpunished?

Such crimes, so-called 'cold cases', are all too common, especially in the big cities where hundreds if not thousands of such incidents remain on file. After the initial furore of questioning suspects and analyzing motives has died down, investigators are often left with no leads, and the uneasy knowledge that a dangerous person is still on the loose, possibly preparing to strike again.

But there is hope. With the development of science, and the continuing improvements in detection techniques, the re-examination of old, unsolved crimes is yielding positive results, often decades after the cases originally went 'cold'. This book documents the most fascinating of these cases, and includes:

. The murdered heiress, Helen Brach

. Albert Fish, child killer

. The Green River killer, Gary Leon Ridgway

. Gerald Parker, the 'Bedroom Basher'

. The woman in a box

. The bone breaker, Joe Clark

. Frank Bender, forensic sculptor

. Dennis Rader, the 'Bind, Torture, Kill' killer

Charlotte Greig