Wicked Beyond Belief cover art

Wicked Beyond Belief

The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper

 Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends December 16, 2025 11:59pm GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Wicked Beyond Belief

By: Michael Bilton
Narrated by: Marston York
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends December 16, 2025 11:59pm GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £16.99

Buy Now for £16.99

Only £0.99 a month for the first 3 months. Pay £0.99 for the first 3 months, and £8.99/month thereafter. Renews automatically. Terms apply. Start my membership

About this listen

Now a major TV series

A gripping and probing account of the biggest criminal manhunt in British history.

It is over 40 years since Peter Sutcliffe was convicted of murdering 13 women and attacking 7 more. Still, he remains a killer of almost mythical proportions; his surviving victims, and their families, forever attached to his infamy.

Michael Bilton’s acclaimed account is a powerful indictment of the calamitous investigation that logged over 2 million man-hours of police work – the biggest criminal manhunt in British history. With exclusive access to the detectives involved, the pathologist’s archives and declassified documents, this account reads like the most gripping of thrillers.

Fully updated for this edition.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2022 Michael Bilton (P)2022 HarperCollins Publishers Limited Abductions, Kidnapping & Missing Persons Law Murder Social Sciences True Crime Crime Scary Thought-Provoking Exciting Disappearance

Listeners also enjoyed...

 I'm the Yorkshire Ripper cover art
Somebody's Mother, Somebody's Daughter cover art
The Murders at White House Farm cover art
Manhunt cover art
Mindhunter cover art
To Hunt a Killer cover art
Stakeknife's Dirty War cover art
Fred & Rose cover art
The Teacher's Pet cover art
Inside the Mind of the Yorkshire Ripper cover art
The Weimar Years cover art
Babes in the Wood cover art
The Search for the Green River Killer cover art
Rose West cover art
Suburban True Crime cover art
The Red Ripper cover art

Critic reviews

‘A masterpiece that reads like a thriller’ Time Out
All stars
Most relevant
A brilliant listen of the story about the hunt for the ripper in 1970's Yorkshire

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
learnt a lot more on what actually happened within the police force and where they went wrong more so than just missed opportunities like how many times he was interviewed. also A lot more victims than I originally thought just not as known because they survived or weren't accepted by the police as potential victims because they weren't working prostitutes

excellent listen

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Thoroughly enjoyed it. Went off on occasion talking about other things but overall a good listen.

Very thorough

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I grew up in northern England, with the headlines of the late 70s and the shadow of the Yorkshire Ripper highlighting the need to "get home safely". I have watched countless documantaries, and listened to several books about Peter Sutcliffe. With confidence I can say that this is the definitive account of the Yorkshire Ripper and just about every relevant story including his campaign of horror, his capture, the court case, his incarceration, the inquiry, his impact on modern policing and closure for all concerned. Marston York uses nunerous authentic accents to bring the dialogue to life. Took be back 40 years, to time without mobile phones or personal computers. The scale of Peter Sutcliffe's horror was unprecedented and evidently unmanageable at that time. An exhaustive listen but, in a very good way if this is what you're looking for.

The benchmark on thr Yorkshire Ripper

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A very difficult listern a very harrowing story excellently written and performed , found it very hard to turn off needs listerning too in one go

Harrowing

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews