Author/journalist and investigative reporter Ivor Davis was deeply embedded in the life of Charles Manson, while maintaining distance from the mesmerizing pull that drew Manson’s followers to him and compelled them to do his savage, unspeakable bidding. Davis retained a cool, independent, and objective view as the case played out, and in his gripping new book Manson Exposed: A Reporter’s 50-Year Journey into Madness and Murder, he shares his personal odyssey over half a century. He meticulously pieces together the complex and Byzantine story, making sense of senseless as well as the facts surrounding one of the most savage massacres in American criminal history.

As a foreign correspondent, he has written widely on movies and medicine for the London Daily Express, The Times of London, the New York Times Syndicate, and Los Angeles Magazine. H ...