Back in 1984, Michael Fairley was a sex predator and burglar who earned the nickname “The Fox” as he lurked inside his victims’ homes, creating makeshift “dens” from blankets and furniture.
He would consume their food, watch their telly and rummage through their belongings while Fairley patiently awaited his victims’ return, often armed with a shotgun.
Six months passed with The Fox still at large and, by the time he was apprehended for crimes including rape and indecent assault in September 1984, he had racked up 81 offences.
Where is Malcolm Fairley now?
Malcolm Fairley was handed six life sentences at St Albans Crown Court in February 1985 for sexual offences, burglaries and possession of a firearm during his crime wave across Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire.
Forty-two years post his conviction, Fairley passed away in May 2024, aged 71, at HMP Hull, where he was discovered alone on his prison cell floor.
An inquest concluded that he had died of natural causes, specifically a heart attack.
Fairley had a history of heart issues and was diagnosed with angina in 2019 and was on regular medication.
Fairley was actually up for parole consideration in October 2023 but his application was turned down by the parole board.
As reported by the St Albans and Harpenden Review, during Fairley’s conviction, judge Justice Caulfield told him: “There are degrees of wickedness beyond condemnatory description.
“Your crimes fall within this category. You desecrated and defiled men and women in their own homes… You are a decadent advertisement for evil pornographers.”
Manhunt: Chasing The Fox can be streamed on Netflix.
Netflix’s The Widower starring Reece Shearsmith tells the true story of Malcolm Webster, the nurse who murdered his wife and attempted to kill his second
The series of Netflix, which is home to a number of true crime shows, chronicles the life and heinous acts of Malcolm Webster (portrayed by Reese Shearsmith), a Surrey nurse who murdered his first wife and tried to kill his second.
Webster, now 66, was known for pursuing relationships with women to boost his income.
In 1993, he wed Claire Morris from Aberdeenshire, and during their marriage, he drugged her.
In May 1994, he drugged Claire before orchestrating a car crash with her in the passenger seat and setting the vehicle ablaze, making it appear as an accident.
In 1997, he married oncology nurse Felicity Drumm in New Zealand, with whom he had a son.
He staged a second car crash in 1999 and was accused of trying to murder her to fraudulently claim £750,000 from nine insurance policies.
Webster also planned to marry Simone Banarjee, having deceived her into believing he had terminal leukaemia.
She altered her will, leaving her entire estate to Webster, but police alerted her about her fiancé’s past and revealed he already had a wife and son.
In July 2011, he was sentenced to at least 30 years in prison, where he remains today.
The former nurse was convicted of murdering Claire Morris and attempting to murder Felicity Drumm.
These crimes were part of a scheme to claim nearly £1m in life assurance money.
In 2016, he tried to get his case referred back to the High Court, but the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission denied his application.
Previously in 2013, his appeal was dismissed when judges rejected his claim of being a victim of a miscarriage of justice.
In his riveting book “The Insider: Malcolm Cowley and the Triumph of American Literature,” veteran book editor Gerald Howard makes a strong claim for Cowley as a crucial catalyst for the efflorescence of American fiction in the years following World War I. He’s not wrong: Working as a critic, author, essayist and editor, Cowley often provided a lone voice in the wilderness for neglected masters.
As consulting editor for publishing house Viking Press in the ‘40s, Cowley resuscitated William Faulkner’s career at a time when most of his books were out of print. Cowley also ushered in Jack Kerouac’s seminal novel of the Beat Generation, “On the Road,” working for seven years to get it published and finally succeeding in doing so in 1957.
For this week’s newsletter, I spoke with Howard about Faulkner, Kerouac and the death of criticism.
He didn’t have a program or a thesis. He had taste. He was just a pure creature of literature.
— Gerald Howard on Malcolm Cowley, the subject of his new book
You’re reading Book Club
An exclusive look at what we’re reading, book club events and our latest author interviews.
Your book details Cowley’s seven–year odyssey to get Kerouac’s “On the Road” published in 1957 and point out that, contrary to Kerouac’s criticisms regarding the editing, Cowley, in fact, had nothing to do with changes that straightened out his prose.
Cowley took a lot of crap from the Kerouac crowd because Kerouac, in a drunken moment, blamed all his troubles with Viking on Cowley when Cowley was innocent. The Kerouac scholars and biographers don’t quite grasp that a good part of the editing job was assigned to other folks at Viking. They added all those commas in the manuscript that Kerouac was so upset about. Cowley was not an advocate of making big changes to the book; he thought Kerouac’s voice was so vital, so fresh.
Perhaps Cowley’s greatest contribution to 20th century American literature is his rehabilitation of Faulkner’s career at a time when all of his books were out of print. In 1944, he was down and out; six years later, he won the Nobel Prize. Cowley had a lot to do with that.
There was something going on in Europe at the time that was somewhat disconnected from what was going on in the United States. Faulkner’s reputation in France in particular was very high; Andre Gide and Sartre were admirers. But in the United States, Faulkner didn’t sell, he had a very mixed reputation, and he was not well understood. Cowley’s first intention was to write a very long essay about Faulkner’s work, which was serialized in various publications, and then to assemble “The Portable Faulkner” for Viking, which sold well. So the ground was prepared by Cowley.
Critics are “so central to a useful, fruitful culture. I myself don’t particularly care to live in a culture that doesn’t have them,” veteran editor Gerald Howard tells The Times.
(Penguin Random House)
What’s remarkable is the catholicity of Cowley’s taste. He studied Racine at Harvard, but then recognizes the greatness of a disparate group of writers: Faulkner, John Cheever, Kerouac, Ken Kesey, all of whom he shepherds into print.
He didn’t have a program or a thesis. He had taste. He was just a pure creature of literature, immensely versatile and conversant with everything that seemed to matter in the literary universe. Up until the ‘60s, he had his radar up and running. He didn’t believe in a fixed canon.
Cowley was an editor of the New Republic from 1929 to 1944, a small-circulation magazine with outsized influence, featuring critics like Edmund Wilson that generated the cultural conversation. Critics have no such sway anymore. Do you feel there has been something lost from that diminishment of the individual critical voice?
We can let all the online measurements determine the things that people like and allow those things to rise to the surface. But I think the role of the critic is to sort through a vast amount of material to find the things that are really valuable, really interesting. Not just books, of course — also movies, art, music. They’re so central to a useful, fruitful culture. I myself don’t particularly care to live in a culture that doesn’t have them.
Is a maverick editor like Malcolm Cowley possible now?
Probably not. The world that he moved in was a closed world. There wasn’t a lot of room for people who were not white, male and heterosexual. It’s disappointing that he was not more interested in African American literature. He should have been. There are plenty of those people around that he knew. And just appreciating Ralph Ellison was not enough.
(This Q&A was edited for length and clarity.)
📰 The Week(s) in Books
(Los Angeles Times photo illustration; Cover by Macmillan)
You may have seen the Netflix series about the “OneTaste” sex cult, but that’s not even the half of it, according to Ellen Huet’s book “Empire of Orgasm,” which Julia M. Klein calls a “deeply troubling” narrative of coercion and financial ruin.
Bad Religion guitarist and overall punk legend Brian Baker has a new book of photographs called “The Road,” and Josh Chesler chatted with him about it: “I think I have a knack for being at the right place at the right time.”
Arcana has served the L.A. market for over 40 years, currently occupying space in the Helms Bakery building in Culver City.
(Joshua White)
Given the vicissitudes of the retail book market, it’s a minor miracle that Arcana: Books on the Arts has survived 41 years. Arcana, which since 2012 has occupied space in the Helms Bakery building in Culver City after a long run at the Third Street Promenade, is the best art bookstore in L.A., offering a vast selection spanning photography, painting, fashion, graphic design and much more. I spoke with owner Lee Kaplan about what is hot in his store right now.
Is there any particular kind of book that tends to do well for you?
Perennials tend to be more comprehensive, hardbound volumes of well-known artists such as Edward Ruscha, Andy Warhol, John Baldessari and Jean-Michel Basquiat; photographers Robert Frank, Todd Hido, William Eggleston, Ed Templeton; architects Frank Gehry, Herzog & De Meuron, Johnston Marklee, and Fashion brands like Comme des Garcons, Supreme, Dior, etc. That noted, we sell a lot of inexpensive zines by creators few have heard of, yet.
Arcana has survived a lot of the ups and downs of the retail book business. What do you think is the secret to your longevity?
Moving to a large, beautifully designed space in Culver City’s Helms Bakery in 2012 (after decades on Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade) turned out to be a fortunate decision. We have room for scores of thousands of books that we have amassed over the years situated in a lively, artistic and design-conscious neighborhood.
Given the internet, why do people still value looking at art in books?
These are two vastly different experiences, and for me, there is no substitute for holding a book as a tangible, tactile object. Thankfully, there are still many, many visitors daily that seem to feel the same.
New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani attended Friday prayers at a mosque in Puerto Rico, where he was welcomed with cheers and shared a message inspired by Malcolm X about equality and justice.
