I usually try to steer clear of serial killer true crime for obvious reasons. I even feel the need to preface this review by insisting this point. William Dorsch has written an excellent book about John Wayne Gacy and he does so without gratifying the usual grotesque appetites of the usual suspects.

In light of the recent Epstein scandal I do feel this is a book far more important than the usual true crime slop which you see so often online.

I'm not sure how much the everyday person knows about Gacy. Certainly, many have seen his image as the killer clown which has captured the popular imagination. Put into simple terms, this book dispels the idea that Gacy was some isolated case of psychopathy, acting alone as a unique evil, but rather (and allegedly) part of a much wider ring of child abuse.

Dorsch was a retired Chicago police detective during the time when Gacy was active. Although he was not involved with the investigation, he did coincidentally meet with Gacy at his home and spoke to him on several occasions.

The start of his involvement began after he made a police report that he once saw Gacy loitering around an apartment complex with a shovel. Since the news that Gacy had almost thirty bodies buried under his house, Dorsch felt this information important and told the police but the lead was never followed up on.

This started at the thread which Dorsch follows in this book detailing an incredible amount of discrepancies in the police investigation.

It will be impossible to note every single instance here but I will try to sum up the main points.

• Gacy upon arrest, asked investigators if they had apprehended his accomplices Michael Rossi, David Cram and Philip Paske (with a fourth left unnamed).

• Rossi had parents who were high ranking politicians was never questioned and never charged.

• Paske was later revealed to be a close associate of John David Norman, a prolific leader of a child abuse ring and distributor of child pornography. He was also never even questioned by police. In the John David Norman case, the thousands of names who he had on record of "clients" was destroyed by police after it had been said they contained many high ranking politicians and celebrities.

• A photographer who had images of Gacy's many and well-attended parties (often by political figures as Gacy was an aspiring democrat who also had a picture with the then First Lady Rosalynn Carter) had his photographs confiscated and destroyed by the prosecution.

• The Chicago police department staging a fake dig at the apartment complex previously mentioned after delaying investigations there for years.

This is just a selection of points in a 350 page book.

In summary, what is alleged by Dorsch is that Gacy was certainly not acting alone and was very possibly operating within a nationwide child trafficking ring.

As Gacy was caught, there was a scramble to wrap up the case to try him as a lone serial killer, leaving his accomplices and the network he worked with a secret.

Dorsch does not provide a solid answer and it would be unfair to demand one from him. Nevertheless, despite it being a tough read with the inevitable details of a serial killer's life, I do think this book is useful when put into context.

The ring Gacy functioned within bears a striking similarity to that of the limited information we have about Epstein. The way the victims were lured remains unchanged, except that the internet now being an additional tool. A network of 'clients' who received these services and an institutional wide cover up once the crimes were exposed. Epstein was in no way the first and only person to run such an operation.