RAYMOND Chandler wanted to write his book a decade ago. He even got as far as talking to a publisher, but his family called him up and pleaded with him not to go ahead, so he relented. And there he might have left it, had it not been for Martin Bashir's 2003 documentary on Michael Jackson.

"I saw that little boy with his head on Jackson's shoulder, holding hands, and that was what spurred me to write the book. It was a sort of visceral reaction," Raymond says, on the phone from his home in California.

It was the Bashir film which led to the investigation which now sees Jackson on trial for child abuse. What prompted Raymond into action was the parallel he saw between the 13-year-old boy in the film, Gavin Arvizo, and his own nephew, Jordie.

Jordie Chandler was the alleged victim of the child abuse scandal which almost saw Jackson face trial a dozen years ago. In the end, no charges were brought after Jordie's family accepted an out-of-court settlement, rumoured at anything from $15-25m, which included a clause prohibiting them from speaking about the claims.

Raymond was not bound by the agreement, but this time there haven't been any calls begging him not to write his book. Mainly because he's no longer in contact with his brother Evan, Jordie's father, and Jordie's side of the family, after falling out over a different issue.

It's a fair bet, though, that Jordie will not exactly welcome the renewed attention, but Raymond says it would have happened anyway, once the Bashir documentary had appeared.

"From that day on, the media was talking about what happened in '93. Whether I had written about it or not, '93 was going to be a major topic of conversation, and my writing about it doesn't mean it is going to be talked about or not talked about. I thought it would be good for people to know what was going on," he says.

HIS self-published book, All That Glitters: The Crime and The Cover-Up, charts, in exhausting detail, the relationship between Jackson and Jordie, from a chance meeting in Los Angeles to sharing a bed in Jordie's room. Interspersed with a record of the arguments between Jordie's mother June, her husband Dave Schwartz, and an increasingly estranged Evan, are alleged instances of sexual behaviour between Jackson and Jordie, claims that they masturbated in front of each other and Jackson performed oral sex on the boy.

Raymond only became involved once the scandal broke, after police were filmed searching Neverland, Jackson's ranch, but says he then took detailed notes of how it had begun and of what happened next. He also took notes of lengthy conversations with his nephew.

But one of the most remarkable aspects of the book is how long it took for anyone to realise there was anything inappropriate about the relationship between a 13-year-old boy and the then 35-year-old Jackson. Raymond puts this down to a combination of awe at Jackson's status, gratitude that a superstar is taking such an interest in the boy, and the effect of Jackson's formidable image machine.

"I knew my nephew was hanging around with Jackson, but I didn't really think anything of it, because it was Michael Jackson. This was a man who claimed to be an advocate for children, who did wonderful things for children, who helped children around the world," Raymond says.

"If it was any other human being, eyebrows would be raised, but we all bought into that image of who he claimed to be. It would not be normal for any child to hang around with an older man, but nobody knew they were sleeping in the same bed together. The only person who knew that was maybe his mother."

JUNE Chandler does not come out of the book at all well. But then, no-one really comes out unscathed, even Raymond's brother Evan. Evan and June's arguments over their son seem to have obscured what seems to have been going on under their nose, but when the truth finally emerged, Raymond says, it was as though a darkened room had suddenly been illuminated.

"Once you find out they were sleeping in the same bed and all the places they had slept and the mother receiving all the gifts and the jewellery and travel, once you put all that together, then you slap yourself on the thigh and go 'duh'," he says.

Part of Jackson's image-building, he says, is to present himself as a childlike innocent, a man who was robbed of his own childhood by fame at an early age and an overbearing father, and who is now trying to find what he never had. It is not a theory which finds favour with Raymond.

"He is a very manipulative man, very smart and educated. He is not childlike at all. He may be ill, he may be sick, but he is not childlike," he says.

"To be stuck at a certain point where you can only have relationships with children of that age, that is not someone wanting to go back to relive their childhood. I don't know too many 13-year-old boys who sleep in bed with other 13-year-old boys. It makes no sense when you think about it."

From what he says, and given that he has no contact with the boy any more, Jordie seems to have emerged remarkably unscathed.

"Jordie got help, which most kids don't get," he says. "He got into therapy. He recognised that he's not to blame here, he was manipulated. He has come out well, he is a healthy boy, he has gone to college.

"The thing that has always lingered is he has got the moniker of the Michael Jackson boy. From the day the Bashir piece came out, the press was looking for him. He had to move."

Given the publicity around the allegations over Jordie, it may seem astonishing that any parent of an adolescent boy would subsequently let their child get close to Jackson, but Raymond sees in Gavin Arvizo's family some of the same fault-lines as in his own: estranged parents, family tension, a boy looking for an idol. Ironically, it may have been these fault-lines which both made the family ripe for Jackson's infiltration, and undermines their credibility to a jury.

'WHAT the District Attorney needs to do is explain to the jury how predators pick on these types of people. You are going to get a child from a two-parent family who are an upstanding family? They are not the kind of people who do this."

He says the decision to accept a pay-out in 1994 and not take Jackson to court came after the Chandlers were threatened but were refused police protection. And at the time Jackson offered to settle the civil suit, there was no criminal investigation.

"The real question is not why my family took the money but why did Michael Jackson pay it?," he says. But while his family's decision does not make them responsible for what is alleged to have subsequently happened to Gavin Arvizo, this doesn't exactly make them innocent, either, he says. But then, nobody is innocent in this story.

"All these parents have been irresponsible - there has not been a responsible parent in any of this and the children become the victims," he says.

"After '93, even if you weren't sure, even if you believed this probably didn't happen, as a responsible parent you were on notice. Nobody should be letting their kid sleep alone with him. Everybody is dirty. There are no clean people in any of this."

l All That Glitters: The Crime and the Cover-Up by Raymond Chandler (Chanadon) £8.99