Collected together in The Daily Telegraph Murder File are nerve-jangling accounts from a century of murder. Taken intact from the Telegraph's superlative domestic crime pages, they range from the lurid, through the chilling, to the touching and sometimes tragic.

Linking these fascinating contemporary extracts is commentary by crime expert Jonathan Goodman. He looks at the background to the murders and the evolving ways of reporting them, and introduces some of the influential figures, from judges to executioners, responsible for their trial and sometimes capital punishment.