THERE are dark and sinister things going on in deepest Devon!

The county has a reputation as a beautiful tourist destination, but its historic towns and windswept cliffs have more sinister stories to tell.

These connections with world famous crime and murder cases are recounted by Mike Holgate in 'Devon Murder and Crime', part of the Tempus Publishing series.

And Devon has some surprises in store. For a start, it was Plymouth based fraudster Charles De Ville Wells who famously broke the bank at Monte Carlo. That was achieved at the casino tables but he was jailed in Portland Prison for fraud on a number of occasions, died bankrupt and is buried in a pauper's grave. And he is immortalised in a song of the same name!

While breaking stone in Portland - deemed to be second only to Dartmoor as the most reviled prison in the country - he would meet John Lee of Babbacombe who, having sentenced to life imprisonment after escaping the death penalty at Exeter Prison, was paroled a century ago and sold his amazing story: The Man They Could Not Hang.

Servant Lee claimed he was innocent of cutting the throat of an elderly lady who had befriended him, setting fire to her and her house. When he went to the scaffold at Exeter and the noose was placed around his neck the trap door only dropped two inches leaving Lee "precariously suspended between life and death".

Wardens stamped on the door to try and force it open and the bewildered prisoner was eventually pulled to the side. The door was tested and worked perfectly so a second attempt was made and it became stuck again!

It was believed overnight rain had swollen the wood of the door. So a third attempt was made to hang Lee and again the trap door did not budge. The surgeon and chaplain present refused to carry on and without the chaplain's signature on any death certifciate the hanging was postponed.

The Home Secretary then commuted the sentence ot life imprisonment and Lee became a bit of a folk hero, attracting sympathy as the man they couldn't hang!

Other stories include an Ilfracombe spiritualist who claimed to have unmasked Jack the Ripper; a Newton Abbot solicitor who remains the only member of his profession to be executed for murder; Oscar Wilde's downfall being initiated by an incriminating letter sent from Babbacombe; and the helmsman of the Titanic who later in life was jailed for attempted murder in Torquay.

The seven dastardly crimes make a captivating read, including newspaper reports from the period and the author, during his research, has managed to find a link with all of them - back to .. John lee, the man they couldn't hang!

Murder and Crime Series: Devon, by Mike Holgate, published by Tempus, price £9.99.