Alibi

Alan Jackaman will be a guest speaker at Crimecon UK in Birmingham in April 2026. See https://www.crimecon.co.uk/ for more details.

A gripping account of crime detection in 1980s London centring on a horrific real-life double murder.

Alibi is a gritty chronicle of crime detection in the 1980s that centres on a real-life unsolved double murder.

Following these tragic events in the lives of would-be international drug dealers, this masterful blend of fact and fiction captures the everyday mayhem of a free-wheeling ‘punishment’ outpost of London’s Metropolitan Police.

When Alan Jackaman was posted to Clapham — a dumping ground for wayward members of the CID — crimes were solved not by DNA and CCTV but by a rag-tag collection of detectives, many of whom preferred banter and a lunchtime pint to doing things by the book.

Within this chaotic, old-school environment, the Murder Squad was tasked with untangling the web of subterfuge and deception spun by the chief suspect. This book challenges the reader to look beneath the murky surface, consider the evidence, and say what really happened on that horrific summer night in South London four decades ago.

Foreword by Rae Price 
Whose life was forever altered by the tragedy.