Elizabeth Baxter has heard it all. Thieves, rapists, drug dealers, burglars, murderers, abusers and arsonists – they’ve all confided in her.

Some are harder to shake than others. There’s sweet, baby-faced Stella who hurled a brick through her ex’s window and threatened to cut off his… well, you get the picture. Jake, who burned down his grandfather’s shed and prized model railway collection. And who could forget Steve, who set up a complex marmite-based distillery in his cell. The moonshine wasn’t for drinking though, but for cleaning. He remains, in Elizabeth’s professional opinion, Britain’s most fastidious murderer.

Recalling her twenty-five years in Britain’s probation service, Elizabeth Baxter offers a fresh perspective on care within the criminal justice system. Warm and humane, A Murderer’s Guide to Cleaning pays tribute to the work of probation officers everywhere, who not only protect the public, but often act as the final safety net for society’s most vulnerable, from teenage asylum seekers to survivors of domestic abuse.

'In this book, Elizabeth Baxter sheds a forensic professional light on the complexities involved in supervising those who commit crimes. She highlights how the issues of deprivation, inequality and masculinity impact on offending, while setting this within the often chaotic personal circumstances of those whose stories she tells. The Probation Service has absorbed considerable, and often damaging, change over recent decades, but Elizabeth Baxter also reminds us of the necessity of a vital element of Probation intervention; the regular face-to-face engagement between those being supervised and "their" trained, diligent and compassionate Probation Officer. "Public Protection, Enforcement and Rehabilitation" may be the letter-head strap-line, but the actual process of effective supervision in the community will always involve "advise, assist, and befriend".' —Peter Wright, former Chief Probation Officer & Probation Trust Chief Executive

'This is the book I wish I’d written. Loved it.' —Katie Smith, former Head of Learning and Development for London Probation

Elizabeth Baxter is a retired Probation Officer who worked in the service for twenty-five years until its privatisation. A Murderer’s Guide to Cleaning is her first book.