"The Only Redeeming Feature of Savile's Life Is That He Has Posthumously Lucked Into Such a Clear‑Eyed and Morally Conscientious Biographer"

"Apart from his mother, God is the only other supporting character in Savile's story, the only one who is granted more than a walk-on part. 'When I'm holding somebody that has just died I'm filled with a tremendous love and envy. They've left behind their problems, they've made the journey. If somebody were to tell me tonight I wouldn't wake up in the morning, it would fill me with tremendous joy. Sometimes I can't wait.' Savile does not belong among the amoral heroes of Patricia Highsmith, disposing of people without remorse in a meaningless universe. Rather, he inhabits the driven world of Graham Greene, where the protagonist is in a lurid and sweaty argument with his maker, trying to pile up credit points to balance the final ledger against what he knows full well to be his sins. If the definition of a psychopath is someone who does not understand his own depravity, then Savile is, to the consternation of medical apologists, the very opposite. He always carried the rosary the pope had given him. On his deathbed, he was found with his fingers crossed."


David Hare in The Guardian reviews Dan Davies's In Plain Sight: The Life and Lies of Jimmy Savile.