Ben Machell is a feature writer for The Times and The Times Magazine and a contributor to publications including VICE, ES Magazine and Esquire. He has been shortlisted for Feature Writer of the Year at the British Press Awards. Ben has full and exclusive access to Stephen and his surviving diaries, as well as access to law enforcement and the key characters involved in Jackley's story on both sides of the Atlantic. @ben_machell
'Completely fascinating . . . reads like a deep psychological thriller, but it's real. Is truth stranger than fiction? You bet' - LEE CHILD 'One of the strengths of Ben Machell's compelling book is its patient unearthing of the various motivations for his subject's behaviour . . . This splendid book . . . does full justice to his complexity' - Guardian 'Stephen Jackley, the Robin Hood bank robber, is an Asperger's student with an incredible, increasingly dark story, which Machell tells with Hollywood box-office wit, compassion and brio. With every page, you find yourself screaming OH MY GOD - WHAT ARE YOU DOING, STEPHEN? , all the way up to him ending in US jail. How one young man's misguided plan to save the world went increasingly, dangerously wrong' - CAITLIN MORAN 'Truly affecting true crime. I've heard it said that a villain is just a victim whose story hasn't been told - this big-hearted, fascinating, meticulous book made me feel that way about Stephen Jackley' - MARINA HYDE 'Fascinating . . . In Machell, [Jackley] has found the most sympathetic and intelligent of biographers . . . The Unusual Suspect raises important questions about our ideas of guilt, idealism and the nature of responsibility . . . a tremendously invigorating book, scrupulously researched, sympathetically told, a picaresque tale of modern life, by turns funny and sad' - Mail on Sunday