In the summer of 1989 John Williams embarked on an epic journey through a deeply troubled USA.

A right-wing Republican administration seemed bent on rolling back the advances of the civil rights era; the Supreme Court were partially reversing the Roe vs Wade ruling on abortion; criminals from the Central Park rapist to the serial killers Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacey were all over the news.

Who did Williams turn to make sense of all this? America's crime writers - that's who. He talked to novelists like James Ellroy and Elmore Leonard, Sara Paretsky and James Lee Burke, and visited the places they write about, like Los Angeles and Detroit, Chicago and New Orleans.

The result was an instant cult classic that remains deeply relevant today: both an incisive and funny travelogue and a revealing guide to the lives and works of America's finest crime writers, caught at their peak.