John Baxter was raised in a coal-mining village in Yorkshire, England. The men in the village were as hard as nails. They worked down the coal mine every day, breathing in the black dust, then came above ground at the end of their shift to drink the local beer and sing their sad songs. Their tempers ran high, and they were quick to pick a fight, often with their wives or family. John and his mother were abused by Jack Baxter, who often used his fists to explain himself. At the age of sixteen, after his father had put his mother in hospital following a particularly brutal attack, John killed his father. Before he left the village of Brexley to find a new life in London, he also strangled a local pedophile to death. This book tells the story of his early years, and his successful life in London under an assumed name.