WENSLEY CLARKSON's debut true crime book Hell Hath No Fury remained in the UK’s top ten non-fiction list for many months in 1994. Biographies and true crime books followed. Clarkson’s earlier career had been spent as a reporter on three of Britain’s biggest selling tabloids and his journalistic career contributed enormously to his later success as a writer. He has close contacts in the underworld and his books reflect that inside knowledge, typified by the classic non-fiction biography of Kenneth Noye, which was one of the best selling true crime books of the 1990s. Wensley has even been interviewed by police seeking his advice re the Brink’s-Mat robbery and the subsequent murder of an ex-policeman.

Clarkson’s latest screenplay Playback is currently in development with Hollywood director John Irvin. Clarkson has appeared in more than 50 TV programmes - mainly about criminals - over the past 20 years. He has directed and produced documentaries, including a one-hour special on notorious crime lord Kenneth Noye, renowned for his involvement in the legendary Brink’s-Mat robbery in 1983 and the later road rage murder of a motorist.

Clarkson began his career at the Wimbledon News in South London but rapidly moved onto Fleet Street where he was working as a staff reporter on the Sunday Mirror by the age of 21. He also worked on the staff of the Mail on Sunday, as well as later freelancing for all the papers, including the broadsheets.

By the mid 1980s, Clarkson had become one of Fleet’s Streets youngest ever executives. In 1987, he quit the Sunday Mirror to pursue a freelance career in film and television and also wrote his first book about life as a tabloid reporter. In 1991, Clarkson was commissioned by 20th Century Fox to write a movie script based on that book and moved with his family to Los Angeles, where he lived and worked for three years. While in California, one of Clarkson’s true crime books was turned into a highly rated US TV movie and eight of his other books have since been developed for film and television.

In the late 1990s, Clarkson bought a villa on a rock overlooking the Mediterranean, in Granada, Spain, just a few hour’s drive east of the notorious Costa del Crime. The house has since been regularly featured in magazines and newspapers and even as a film location, due to its stunning location, just a few metres from the sea. Clarkson also forged strong links with criminals and other so-called “personalities” on the nearby Costa del Crime, They provided much of the background material for his best selling books Costa del Crime and Gang Wars On The Costa.
In recent years, Clarkson has also worked extensively in reality-based TV and has just produced a major one-hour documentary entitled “Hash” for National Geographic. His earlier contribution to another Nat Geo documentary on the Brit criminals can be viewed through above YouTube link.