Gray was eventually given a life sentence with a minimum 23-year term for Morgan’s murder; the other two had six- and eight-year sentences for manslaughter and were released in nearly half that time. In the book’s first section, we learn not just of hospital worker Morgan’s death and its effect on his family, but also about his character – that of a young man who was the life and soul, a mirror image in some ways of his HGV-driving father. Yet by framing it in this way, Whitehouse engages the reader, too – imagine what it might be like, he asserts, to lose a son in this way. It sounds a bit lofty but I also wanted to somehow translate the pain and loss from his personal experience into a universal one; to tell Colin’s story, but also the story of his family and the town, which I think is so important in understanding what happened to Morgan.

And we have our monthly recommendation from inside the book industry with Jacques Testard from Fitzcaraldo Editions,, who chooses Fleur Jaeggy’s The Water Statues translated by Gini Alhadeff from New Directions Publishing.I was lucky enough to bag a preview copy of this startling piece of non-fiction a few months ahead of its official release in April. A riveting blend of reportage, memoir and true crime, and the first non-fiction book from Francesca Main’s new Phoenix imprint at Orion, it is one of those titles that excels by defying categorisation. The diary eventually made it into the hands of David Whitehouse, an author originally from Nuneaton, and what emerged from this unique collaboration is a feat of creative non-fiction. It brings the victim to the fore in a way that the courts struggle to do, and it shows what can go wrong when the victim is forgotten or sidelined. He will forgive most clumsy attempts at condolence, but he will never forgive “anyone who thinks, even for a second, that Morgan must have had it coming”.

The facts are these: on Halloween night in 2015, Morgan, who worked at the local George Eliot hospital and played in a band, was walking across the nearby rec, between pubs, with a few of his mates. His murderer, Dec-lan Gray, had been released from jail just four months earlier, having served time for manslaughter. Part true crime, part memoir, it tells the story of a shocking murder, the emotional repercussions, and the failures that enabled it to take place. Last week in Georgia, a new bill was passed to give more power to school boards and parents in what books are available in schools.A week after Morgan’s murder, the family decide to light and launch some Chinese lanterns from their garden in his memory. But the lanterns crash to the ground and set fire to the grass, and suddenly everyone starts laughing because they know Morgan would have found it funny too. Colin fought and fought to find out where and why the system had failed, and finally brought about change in the way the police, probation and prison services work together to manage violent offenders.