Madeleine McCann Books

What am I looking for?

Got it in front of me now.... A bit about why would G.A want to convince a missing child is dead - with no evidence to support his claim. KM spending many days in tears, sobbing at the injustice being done to Madeleine by the very people who should have been helping her.... A bit about the Casa Pia child-abuse scandal....

(I've got the hardback edition)

What page is this on then?

Assistant Chief Constable for Leicestershire police gave this written statement: “While one or both of them may be innocent there is no clear evidence that eliminates them from involvement in Madeleine’s disappearance.”

Remind me of his name so can look it up in the index.

Can't be arsed to read the whole thing to find it.....

Andrew wrote:Remind me of his name so can look it up in the index.

Can't be arsed to read the whole thing to find it.....

Stuart Prior

I don't think he was Assistant Chief Constable at the time, Mimi..? (he was a D.S)

Anyway his name isn't in the index.

Page 316.

Doesn't give a name though. Who did say that?

Sorry deleted your post Freedom, moving and splitting threads

I shall sulk now!

There's more about the copyright issue here.

https://maddiemccannmystery.forumotion.co.uk/t1803-it-s-not-about-making-money-kate-mccann-threatens-to-sue-social-media-users-for-stealing-extracts-from-best-seller-book-about-missing-maddie#81898

You can use a couple of sentences discussing book or issuses in it under "fair use" as long as you credit the author!

I read the book (on Kindle so cheap) I did worry about the money funding McCanns but I thought it would be useful for cross-reference and hearing Kate's version of events. I found it fascinating. The early sections about Madeleine's first few years give context - the family moved four times, Madeleine had colic and didn't sleep much and Kate went from working in a very dynamic team environment to being at home alone with Madeleine for long periods. She also had a very debilitating, traumatic pregnancy with the twins. She seems truthful and candid here.

What I found bizarre was the least emotionally charged section of the book is the period after Madeleine's disappearance, this seems to focus on the formation of the campaign (a result of Gerry's vision) and the various parties who became part of the burgeoning  'business'. All very disturbing but for the wrong reasons!

The most emotionally charged section is from when the McCanns are taken in for formal questions and suddenly the spell is broken. This is when we see some of the emotion, panic and fear we probably expected following what should be the most emotionally charged moment in the book - Madeleine's disappearance - but we don't.

If you like analyzing texts and if you treat it as evidence to cross reference with other evidence, I think this is a useful book to have. For me I felt the context explained why so many people want to help Kate, because she is vulnerable and emotionally immature. The most revealing thing for me was the contrast between who the McCanns were and what they became - it's a tale of moral decline - a sort of bildungsroman in reverse, in my opinion.

Your analysis is very interesting whats up doc. Unlike you I didn't have to spend my hard earned money on it as someone who had bought the paperback passed it to me. I read it carefully.

I found it hilarious where she is talking about the babysitting options for the night Maddie disappeared.  Ok the evening creche didn't suit as by the time it opened her children would have been tucked up in bed after their bedtime stories.  But then she says she would not have considered a babysitter neither the children or Gerry or herself knew.  So they children were left alone with the (alleged) checking system.  the hypocracy of that!  The children were in the creches all day every day.  She says earlier in the book how nice the creche nannies were. She does not mention that the creche nannies will babysit for an hourly rate. It was early in the season so the nannies would not have been booked up.  probably the nannies promoted their evening availability to clients as it was extra (and presumably) tax free money for them. I doubt they were paid that much by Warners.  I read that the cost was about £8 ph - surely not too much for two doctors?

I wonder why the books editor did not point this out to her.

Its reasonable when you are in a foreign country not to get a babysitter via a noticeboard in the local supermarket etc but not to use girls presumably vetted by Warners and whom, more importantly, your children know and like, is bizarre.

Hey Antonia - like you I find the McCanns' approach to childcare very curious. I do not know any parents (me included)who expect their children to adhere to their routine with such rigidity on holiday. Kate dismissed the childcare options available way too casually in my opinion and her assertion that it never crossed her mind that this might not be be a safe option doesn't ring true. She doesn't even attempt to justify the decision to leave the doors unlocked. I find her whole account of the days leading up to the disappearance really troubling - I expected  touching anecdotes that would reveal Madeleine's personality or at least make me think she had had a happy holiday but  I didn't get that at all - instead we have banal references to tennis, fixing shutters and running. All very odd!

There is no sense of Maddies personality at all in the book. No funny anecdotes , little sayings etc. I genuinely believe that she didn't live with them for a while if at all. They didn't know her

PMR wrote:There is no sense of Maddies personality at all in the book. No funny anecdotes , little sayings etc. I genuinely believe that she didn't live with them for a while if at all. They didn't know her

This ties in with question 41 of the 48 questions Kate refused to answer: Is it true that in England you even considered handing over Madeleine's custody to a relative? Not the sort of question that is plucked out of thin air! The early sections of the book indicate (for me) an unsettled start for Madeleine: four moves and two countries; various and changing child care; a mother who becomes ill during her second pregnancy; even witnessing a relative having a heart attack. Any one of these factors could have an impact on a child's development. Yet fast forward and Kate paints a picture of children who go to sleep on cue, who politely ask to go back to day care on holiday and rationally ask "Why didn't you come when we were crying?" There's a disconnect for me that just doesn't add up and when you try to square what she tells us with the numerous questions she refused to answer, relating to parenting, it feels very contrived in my opinion.

I just think if this is Kate with Madeleine as an infant, there's a very strong argument to be made that she's not Madeleine's birth mother, and a surrogate was used. Look at her skinny figure. And this is after giving birth? How old is Madeleine in that photo (if it is Madeleine)? Furthermore, if she's breast feeding, should she be drinking?

All questions that have crossed my mind.

Hey canada12 I would say Madeleine is less than six months old. She looks quite strong. As for surrogacy, Kate says she had IVF so I don't know about that and it's not something I've considered before. I have known women who had very neat bumps and looked quite thin within weeks of giving birth - sadly I wasn't one of them! Kate says that she and Madeleine often enjoyed a slice of cake in the afternoons - it must have been very small. Kate also says Madeleine was a 'colicky" infant and didn't like to be put down, so Kate carried her a lot. My daughter was like that and it led to separation anxiety. I find this photo sad - at this time a young mum is so full of optimism one hopes. I expect she had given up breast feeding by this stage. I wonder when it was taken? They moved to Amsterdam when Maddie was seven months old.

Just seen a link left on Textusa's blog about this new book coming out.

https://shakedowntitle.com/2017/04/05/two-sides-to-the-mccann-story-or-more/

Two Sides to the McCann Story – or more?

APRIL 5, 2017 / JUROR13

“Every truth has two sides; it is as well to look at both, before we commit ourselves to either.”  — Aesop

“No matter how flat you make your pancakes, it still has two sides.” — Daniel Tosh

“In seeking truth you have to get both sides of a story.” — Walter Cronkite

Having covered half a dozen high-profile criminal cases, some of them very difficult and very complex cases, we believe we’re ready to investigate Madeleine’s story.

If there are two sides to Madeleine’s story, then there’s certainly an opportunity for even more sides to the story merely on the McCann’s side alone. This is in terms of Kate’s version of events vis-à-vis Gerry’s.  There is also the possibility that Kate’s version may deviate from “the McCann’s” narrative or that Gerry’s might.  By McCann narrative, I mean their common cause.* If and when we find these deviations, we will find signature cracks to this case.


When dealing with the possibility of more than one suspect [and at one time** police believed both Madeleine’s parents were prime suspects or “arguidos”], there is not one arch narrative mirrored by one opposing narrative.  When there are several suspects*** there are typically several opposing narratives, each claiming to be the definitive narrative.

In other words:

McCann narrative vs Counter narrative

Gerry McCann narrative vs Counter narrative

Kate McCann narrative vs Counter narrative

Gerry McCann narrative vs McCann narrative

Kate McCann narrative vs McCann narrative

Gerry McCann narrative vs Kate McCann narrative

McCann narrative vs McCann narrative

The counter narrative is effectively the narrative the McCanns wish to oppose, control or discredit.  Typically the counter narrative confronts the opposing narrator as a suspect, where he or she, or both, are seen as a protagonist(s) in his or her, or their, own invented spiel.

If it sounds complicated at a single glance, it is.  It’s much simpler to sample one piece at a time, and then piece the whole thing together and see how it fits.

Having written one book short of three trilogies on the unsolved JonBenét Ramsey case, we hope the readers will allow us, through the course of this narrative, to make certain linkages between both the Ramsey case and the McCann case as they come up. It is also useful to draw similarities and inferences from various other cases.

These intertextual similarities help us to develop confidence in what’s there, and to notice what’s far more important: what isn’t there.  The absence of evidence is sometimes the more compelling evidence.  It is the nature of true crime that information is missing and not merely missing, but hidden.  More often than not these holes in the suspecttrue crime narrative are found by inference.

We will use various data mining techniques to filter through this enormous narrative.  What we’re hunting for are inconsistencies in the narrative cosmology.  The dissimilarities help us to see the idiosyncrasies of a particular case on their own terms. So, for example, we might ask:

What do abductions of small children typically look like?

Do abductions look any different when they happen in foreign countries?

What sort of profile can we draw up based on an abduction scenario and does that profile fit this case?

If so, how so?

If not, why not?

On the other side of the narrative divide we might ask simple questions like:

What kind of people are doctors?

What kind of parents are doctors?

How are doctors different [as people and parents] from others, if at all?

Simple questions in true crime often have difficult answers.

I might as well be upfront right now and make it emphatically clear that the PR surrounding this case is absolutely staggering.  Given that no criminal trial specific to this case, or a trial for those thought to be directly involved ever occurred, the intensity of the coverage is even more mind-boggling.

However, the saturation media coverage surrounding this unsolved case is something the McCann and the Ramsey cases [a case twice as old as the McCann case] have in common.  There are two sides to saturation media.  There is the hijacking of a particular narrative one way or the other in the media but not necessarily by the media, and then there is the repeated laying down of a narrative – of a version of events – by the suspects themselves.

The effect of these repeated assertions and also counter-assertions by other players and responses to these – in the media – is similar to making sworn statements in court and then being cross-examined in court.  The only difference is, in the media there are far more opportunities and potential players who can control, influence or steer a narrative.

While the media can be an effective tool, it can also turn on its masters.  Give someone enough rope to hang themselves and invariably they do, don’t they?

Just a year or two ago, we likely would not have thought a cogent analysis of this case would be possible without court documents, which necessarily are a detailed public record of various positions, including expert testimonies and detailed outlays of forensic evidence.  The Ramsey case, I believe, provides a prescient example where more than sufficient narrative has been laid down [even in the media, especially in the media] despite the absence of a trial.  In addition to these “unofficial” narratives are countless depositions and police statements.

In both cases, many additional narratives have emerged through alternative sources. There are countless interviews which form part of a public record.  There are also several books, not merely those by the [former] prime suspect/s but also by the investigator in charge of the case.

In the Ramsey case, both parents were suspects and both parents wrote a book to “set the record straight.”  In the McCann case both parents were suspects at one time, but it was Kate McCann – the more media shy of the couple – who elected to tell her story.


In the spirit of two suspects and two sides to a story, the DOUBT narrative is a two [possibly three] part series.  The second narrative interrogates the events and players crucial to what happened on May 3rd in sharp detail. The second narrative attempts to provide a cogent scenario for who, why and when Madeleine was killed, and what happened to her remains. The second narrative also deals more particularly with Gerry and Kate.

The ambit of this narrative is to briefly introduce the characters involved [such as the Tapas 9], to contextualize the massive media coverage, to meticulously locate the case on a beach in Southern Portugal and to resolve the greatest mystery of all bedevilling this case: the motive surrounding Madeleine’s death.

If Madeleine did die, how was her death and disposal covered up?  The Ramsey case provides, I believe, very useful reference material in terms of the first part of that question.  Some elements of the second are also there. However, what isn’t found in reference cases is part of the unique terrain of this case and we make no bones about it, these are very difficult areas to intuit and interrogate.  It can be done but requires precision analysis, absolute concentration and an absorption of all the available data.  All of these then feed into an attempt to try to interrogate a compelling psychology
surrounding the disposal of one’s child, if that is what happened.

Part of how we intend to achieve this is by trying to understand the McCanns themselves.  This discussion spans both narratives, but starts off with a broader focus which becomes more targeted and more surgical as the narrative progresses. Although we begin with a particular end in mind, we must let the evidence and the actors guide us.  The difficult part is deciding what to use to guide you and what to discard as mischievous malingering.

What is DOUBT?

Why DOUBT?

DOUBT is like a raven that doesn’t belong in a cloudy sky. It flies low over tawny terrain and crawling, baby blue waters of the North Atlantic. Like a black dagger cutting across white limestone, it searches across many paths for the true story of a solitary little girl.  The path to the doctors’ daughter requires a bold line of inquiry, so how about this:

What if the whole world thought Madeleine McCann was missing when she was never abducted to begin with?

What if Madeleine was murdered?

This book occupies itself primarily with the first question.

*Common cause is also known as a “shared purpose.”  In the legal sense it is the set of facts agreed on by both the prosecution and defense.

**On September 7th 2007 the McCanns were formally identified as suspects in their daughter’s disappearance. They were accused by police of killing Madeleine, hiding her for several weeks and then secretly disposing of Madeleine’s body.

***High-profile cases involving more than one prime suspect include the JonBenét Ramsey case, the Amanda Knox case, Steven Avery and the West Memphis Three. Ultimately the prosecution, or prosecution failures, in all these cases were arguably far from adequate.


The first installment of DOUBT will be available on Amazon in May

Having waded through that bollocks I think I can safely say it's the work of Textusa her/him/themselves.

The author's name is given as Nick van der Leek.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nick-van-der-Leek/e/B00OW1IC44

https://truecrimespodcasts.com/tag/nick-van-der-leek/

It looks like he's written quite a bit on 'high-profile' cases.

I wonder why it took him so long to get round to this one then...

And why now...

Is this why Tony Bennett has started referring to Textusa in the masculine then?

You've lost me there!

Are you saying that Tony thinks that Textusa is this Nick guy?

Freedom wrote:You've lost me there!

Are you saying that Tony thinks that Textusa is this Nick guy?

You don't think there's a certain similarity in style between that over wordy waffle posted above and the Textusa blog?