My Brother the Killer

"If Angela's Ashes and My Dark Place had a . . . love child, it might look . . . like [this] riveting family chronicle. . . . harrowing, heartbreaking . . . horrifying." —Mark Sarvas, author of. Memento Park

In the gritty docklands of south-east England, Alix Sharkey and his younger siblings grew up in awe of their charismatic yet violent father, a vicious alcoholic. Yet it was Alix's kid brother Stuart who defended his siblings at home, at school and on the streets. Their fraternal bond was deep and powerful until Alix moved away from their rough hometown. Stuart remained—and slid into a furtive life of sexual violence against teenage girls, punctuated by prison time.


Having started out inseparable, their paths diverged radically. Alix became a journalist, cosmopolitan and bilingual. Today, Stuart remains incarcerated in Britain's most notorious high security prison. Twenty years ago, he was convicted of the kidnap and murder of his 15-year old niece Danielle. Despite his conviction, a lost appeal, and repeated pleas by her parents, Stuart has steadfastly refused to reveal the location of his victim's remains, condemning the girl's parents to unresolved grief.


How do two brothers choose such different paths? Could anything have prevented Stuart from becoming a killer? What factors contributed to his fall? What does Alix owe to Stuart—the fiercely protective kid brother—and what does he owe to the truth?


In this piercing memoir, Alix tackles these questions and confronts a harsh reality: that the younger brother he once adored not only deceived their own family for decades, but destroyed another with his truly heinous crime.


"Sharkey offers an intimate, thought-provoking meditation on how his brother's childhood and adolescence affected his later actions." —Library Journal