Murder Of Lord Shaftesbury,the

Book excerpt: The scandalous debauchery of the playboy tenth Earl of Shaftesbury sent seismic shock waves through the British aristocracy. One of the richest men in the country, he abandoned his loyal wife and two sons for a depraved life of drunken orgies, cocaine and bed-hopping in the South of France. His riotous romp plumbed the depths when he divorced the mother of his children to marry a foreign prostitute, whom he treated lavishly. Within two years, however, he was planning to divorce her to install another from his stable of swingers as Countess and chatelaine of his Dorset mansion and estates. But ugly fate caught up with him. After being reported missing in November 2004, his skeletal remains were found several months later among household rubbish in what had once been a beauty spot on the ritzy French Riviera. The Countess and her psychopath brother were convicted of the premeditated murder, committed in a desperate attempt to retain the titled status and a lion's share of the inheritance before the Earl had changed his will. The full, tawdry story has never been told - until now. People privy to the Earl's darkest secrets have been tracked down and have filled in vital gaps never revealed or published before. In this meticulously researched book, the author has unearthed truths beyond the most warped imagination. This is the shocking true account of how an ancient and distinguished aristocratic family found its reputation blackened almost beyond repair.