The Peer and the Gangster

‘His book is both lively and engrossing, and provides the clearest and most comprehensive account yet of this extraordinary saga.’ - Peter Parker, The Spectator

‘Daniel Smith tells the story of Boothby, the Krays and Goodman in a rollicking tone that carries conviction and reads well.’ - Richard Davenport-Hines, The Times

‘Daniel Smith explores the conspiracy of silence surrounding Sir Robert Boothby . . . A sensational item or allegation on every page.’ - Roger Lewis, Daily Mail

In July 1964, the Sunday Mirror ran a front-page story headlined: PEER AND A GANGSTER: YARD ENQUIRY. The newspaper reported that the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police had ordered an investigation into an alleged homosexual relationship between ‘a household name’ from the House of Lords and a leading figure in the London underworld. Lord Boothby was the Conservative lord in question, and Ronnie Kray the infamous gangster. The report threatened a scandal even more explosive than that of the Profumo affair the previous year. Yet within a couple of weeks the story had been killed off.

In The Peer and the Gangster, the full saga of the cover-up and its far-reaching consequences is revealed, and exposes how eminent figures from the political firmament, the Security Service, the Metropolitan Police, the legal profession and the media saw to it that the Sunday Mirror’s story was crushed almost as soon as it emerged.