Alix Sharkey is the older brother of Stuart Campbell, the man convicted in 2002 of murdering 15-year-old, Danielle Jones. Danielle's body was never found, and the author wrote this book in the hope his brother would finally do the right thing and reveal where Danielle's body is before his parole hearing scheduled for later this year. Of course, this isn't ever a book you could say you enjoyed, purely for the nature of the crime, but it was a captivating read which was well written. I was particularly interested in the forthcoming parole hearing due at the end of this year, especially with 'Helen's Law's now in force, meaning cases where the location of a body is never disclosed a parole review is likely to be denied - no body, no parole. The author has done really well to not make the book all about himself or his brother, voicing his concerns on many occasions throughout the book of the anguish and upset Danielle's family are still going through. My brother, the killer is an interesting, first hand account into the life of child-killer Stuart Campbell. It’s written by Alix Sharpley, his elder brother, and describes in great detail events such as their childhood and the murder charge itself. If the author wasn't being offensive, he was writing about things that didn't matter. He would constantly talk about how the case affected him, despite the fact that Danielle Jones lost her life and her body has never been recovered. He talked about how the trial affected him, and how he didn't know who to cry for. Himself, or Danielle? The 15-year old’s body was never recovered, but Danielle’s parents soon learned that her ‘Uncle Stuart’, a close family friend, had concealed a decades-long history of sexual violence against teenage girls. Despite the absence of a body, Stuart Campbell was sentenced to life in prison for Danielle’s abduction and murder. But what set him on his path as a violent sexual predator? And how do you come to terms with his actions if he’s your own flesh and blood?

May be spoilers. One particularly upsetting element for everyone involved is that the girl's body has never been located. The convicted killer refuses to help. Understandably, this is an ongoing open wound for all the families touched by this tragedy. There was a moment of foreshadowing in the text that never seems to have been pursued. When the brother went to another school, the writer was jealous and destroyed his brother's electronic calculator (a new device at the time). Even though the writer was beaten by his mother, he never confessed and refused to admit his guilt because then he would have had to apologize. When I read this I thought, well, that is the same pattern as the killer years later — he will never admit his crime, will never apologize. The writer did not seem to have made this connection, how his own behaviour as a boy so strongly evokes his brother's actions years later. A memoir heavily focused on a crime committed by the author's brother, I found this to be a tremendous work, and impossible to put down. The author Alix Sharkey jumps between two time periods in the past, examining his childhood and young adulthood, and then focusing on the moments immediately before and after the murder of 15-year-old Danielle Jones, for which Sharkey's brother – the girl's uncle – was ultimately convicted. I think in talking about their past, Sharkey deftly describes why both he and his brother ended up with the problems they had in early adulthood, but without excusing any of his brother's behavior, musing near the end that if their childhood caused his brother to murder a teenage girl, wouldn't he be right there in prison with him? This is the true crime memoir of Stuart Campbell, his brother and the murder of Danielle Jones. Alix Sharkey writes about their lives growing up, his own feelings, and thoughts now about his these could have affected his brother if he’d only known. The tale of family secrets, abuse and deception, and how a little innocent boy can grow up to be a murderer…Never heard of this crime story before, although it was much in the news (in the U.K.). Not an easy book to read because of the content, but it does have a coherent flow. The brother in the title is somewhat of a mystery, an enigma, so the book is really about the family. Essentially it is a memoir about the author and growing up in a rough neighbourhood outside London, with an alcoholic father, and then later dealing with the revelation that his brother has been accused of abducting and killing a 15 year old girl (and to make the story even worse, the accused is the girl's uncle). At 8.00am on Monday 18th June 2001, Danielle Jones left home dressed in her school uniform – and promptly vanished. Funny enough this is a hard review to write. I remember reading about Danielle Jones going missing in the papers and seeing it on the news, recently I heard it again recently on a podcast. I can't begin to imagine how the families have coped over the past 2 decades, Each time it resurfaces in the media or as in this case a new book it must feel like a plaster being ripped off for both families.. This was... interesting. A very smooth read, for better or worse -- there was a certain glibness to the prose at times, which, combined with the fact that this is basically a memoir, gave me the impression that Mr. Sharkey only told as much as he felt comfortable with or able to, while there were other layers to the story that were not delved into. Which I guess is only natural, but it also underscored what I felt was a certain shallowness he cultivated in his public persona -- this is someone who is very eager to tell us about his accomplishments (Parisian condo; young girlfriend; lots of money), the parties he went to, his fantastic cool friends, there's a lot of breathless hedonism that's very 1990s. Which is fine, especially considering the precarious conditions he grew up under (power to him to make it out of there), but it feels a bit weird to hear him talk about the missing Danielle and her family in between the bits about his crazy French life and whatever else he had going on; it's not like he knew the missing girl, or her family, beyond meeting them once at a family wedding, so the whole "poor Danielle; her parents must be going through hell" bit feels a bit hollow.

I'm not sure I can say I enjoyed reading this book - purely because of the nature of what this book is about. However it was super interesting, and the idea of nature vs nurture was a strong theme within this book - particularly with the final couple of chapters. (i won't say more in case it's a spoiler) This book simultaneously reaches into the past in two different time periods, one counting the time since Danielle's disappearance and secondly to their earliest days as brothers and both timelines shine through with an honesty that took my breath away.I don't know how this man writes for a living, it's so bad. Part of the book feels like he's writing a personal autobiography then it switches to a true crime write up then it switches again to a thriller where he's beating the hell out of a guy in a strip club. Half of the things the author wrote about really didn't need to be included, and I swear he repeated a few things. Then on top of all that, he throws in this random theory that his brother killed Danielle Jones because he could have been molested by a paedophile from when he attended boarding school. Maybe he was, but it just felt like the author crammed the theory in there, and then hoped for the best. This is a case that I didn't think I knew, until I searched up the crime online, and I remember it being such a high profile case. Stuart Campbell, Alix Sharkey's brother abducted and murdered Danielle Jones one June day in 2001. Her remains have never been found and Stuart is coming to the end of his minimum 20 year sentence imposed on him.