Welcome to my review of Finding Suzy By David Videcette. My first 5-star read of the year, this is a really interesting relook at the Suzy Lamplugh case and an alternative idea of what may have happened. really well researched over a number of years and well written.
How can someone just disappear?
Step inside a real-life, missing person investigation in this compelling, true crime must-read.
Uncover what happened to missing estate agent Suzy Lamplugh, as David Videcette takes you on a quest to unpick her mysterious disappearance and scrutinise the shadowy ‘Mr Kipper’.
One overcast Monday in July 1986, 25-year-old estate agent Suzy Lamplugh vanished whilst showing a smart London property to a mysterious ‘Mr Kipper’.
Despite the baffling case dominating the news and one of the largest missing persons cases ever mounted, police failed to find a shred of evidence establishing what had happened to her.
Sixteen years later, following a second investigation and under pressure from Suzy’s desperate parents, police named convicted rapist and murderer John Cannan as their prime suspect. However, the Crown Prosecution Service refused to charge him, citing a lack of evidence.
High-profile searches were conducted, yet Suzy’s body was never found. The trail that might lead investigators to her, long since lost.
Haunted by another missing person case, investigator and former Scotland Yard detective, David Videcette, has spent five years painstakingly reinvestigating Suzy’s cold case disappearance.
Through a series of incredible new witness interviews and fresh groundbreaking analysis, he uncovers piece by piece what happened to Suzy and why the case was never solved.
People don’t just disappear…
As an investigator, David Videcette has worked on a wealth of famous cases. He’s chased numerous dangerous criminals and interviewed thousands of witnesses. With decades of experience working in counter-terror operations and combatting organised crime, David investigated the 7/7 London bombings as a Scotland Yard detective. Today he uses his policing expertise to investigate cold cases in his true crime series: Investigations by David Videcette. He is also the author of the Detective Inspector Jake Flannagan thriller series. David lives in London. When he is not writing, he consults on security operations for high-net-worth individuals and is a key media commentator on crime and policing for broadcasters and newspapers, both nationally and internationally.
Find out more at: www.DavidVidecette.com
I heard about this book on a book forum somewhere, which I would credit if I could remember where I saw it, but unfortunately, I don’t. However, it came highly recommended. As I like true crime books, I thought I would try it. Unfortunately, I didn’t read any reviews first, and it was utterly different to what I expected.
The book is well written, obviously about Suzy Lamplugh going missing; this reads more like fiction than a typical non-fiction book. However, the conversations are well described and make up a large portion of the book.
Ex-detective David Videcette has spent years of his own time and money in carrying out a new investigation into Suzy’s disappearance and questioning the original police investigation. To say this is an interesting read would be an understatement. However, the book would suggest several flaws in the initial investigation, most notably, the whole idea of the viewing with ‘Mr Kipper’ seems to be fictitious, the very thing the entire case has been based around.
This is a very detailed account of what else may have happened, an utterly alternative narrative that is highly detailed and well researched, written with sensitivity and balance. It was fascinating to see how the police, family members and the media were involved in the official investigations and how things have been portrayed over time. This also showed a fascinating insight into how one may run a cold case investigation, and the information picked over from before, sometimes giving some very different answers.
The author has put forward a whole new theory that is very credible about what happened to Suzy. Whether he is correct is left to be seen over the coming years. However, previous official investigations into this cold case have stayed fixed on the original ideas for what happened. There doesn’t appear to have been any review of the witnesses, some of whom weren’t considered necessary initially, which they may have been.
Unusually for a non-fiction book, this is told more like a story, making it very easy to read and digest a pleasant surprise. I would highly recommend this to anyone who likes to read about true crimes or who would like to read a refreshing and new take on a crime.
Ultimately though, having a family member go missing like this and dying while never knowing what happened to your daughter must be the most tragic of all circumstances.
| Title | Finding Suzy |
| Author | David Videcette |
| Series | N/A |
| Format | Kindle |
| Page Count | 310 Pages |
| Genre | NonFiction |
| Publisher | DNA Books |
| Release Date | 5th August 2021 |
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3 comments
This was a great read – so glad you recommended it! After finishing the book, I was 100% convinced by the author’s hypothesis, but now have some doubts after reading the review by ‘L. F.’ on Amazon UK. In particular, it seems the neighbour was alerted to the people leaving 37 Shorrolds Road by the front door closing and looked up to see a man and woman moving to the pavement – so it wasn’t just random people in the street, it was people who had definitely been in the house. As the reviewer says, who would that have been if not Suzy and ‘Mr Kipper’? And a friend of Suzy’s saw her in her car that day arguing with a man. Maybe ‘Mr Kipper’ was a name invented by Suzy (to cover up that she was meeting a boyfriend not a house hunter) but was actually a real person? Of course, both the neighbour and the friend could have been wrong – I know that witnesses are notoriously unreliable.
I would have thought that the Met should at least investigate the pub angle. Why wouldn’t they? They do seem to have really messed up the investigation over the years, which is no surprise to me – I was recently a victim of fraud (connected with building work – long complicated story) and the police force here passed the case to the Met, having identified the fraudster and traced them to London. The Met have refused to investigate, which the police officer on the case here was absolutely staggered by, given that they’ve already identified the culprit. ‘We would never be allowed just to drop the case like that,’ she told me. This has left me with little confidence in the Met and more inclined to come down on the side of the author.
What do you think?
That’s awful about them dropping your case like that, it’s appalling!
It’s a difficult one though isn’t it, there is always more to a story than you think and while someone may have been seen outside the address (which may have been Suzy) it wasn’t necessarily her but still could have been. Difficult as well as there aren’t any official case files to access to make a decision. In ‘normal’ cases (e.g. Jeremy Bamber) I like to read the proper evidence on both sides and make my own opinions or accept that I just don’t know either way but that’s obviously not possible in this case. Either way though, someone somewhere knows exactly what happened to her but it does seem that we may never find out after so long.
Re the woman at the house- yes, the neighbour might have thought he heard the front door of that house closing, which would suggest it must have been someone with a key, but noises outside can be deceptive – might have been the door of another house. And if Suzy didn’t have a key… The police are now saying the estate agent’s key was never found, though – did the police get in with another key, maybe supplied by the home owner? So many questions!
The only hope, I suppose, is that her body might some day be found and there may be DNA evidence there.
(Being a fraud victim is actually good material – thankfully it wasn’t toooo much money!)