This is a tale of scandalous debauchery, of money, drunken orgies, cocaine, betrayal and murder.

Anthony Ashley-Cooper was the tenth Earl of Shaftesbury. A legendary playboy and heir to a Downton-esque land lineage in East Dorset. He was famed far and wide for his salacious sex life and riotously decadent lifestyle. But when he married a gold-digging French-North African prostitute, Jamila M’Barek, fame was soon to become infamy.

As the Earl’s roving eye once more began to wander, M’Barek became paranoid she would lose her lavish lifestyle, huge monthly allowance and flat in Cannes and so paid her psychopathic brother to murder Ashley-Cooper before she could be divorced and disinherited.

The Earl of Shaftesbury’s pitiful remains were found in a ditch in France months later having been exposed to the elements and mountain wolves. After extensive testing, he was found to have been beaten and strangled to death, and M’Barek and her brother jailed for murder.

But the full, lurid story has never been told until now. People privy to the Earl’s darkest secrets have been tracked down to fill in the vital gaps missed by the trial. In this shocking book, the author lays bare truths beyond the most warped imagination.