Product Description

This was the bland semi-detached home of Fred and Rose West, and the guardian of their incredible secret: the remains of nine young women - many of them dismembered, decapitated and showing evidence of sexual torture - were buried under its cellar, bathroom floor and garden. The remains of Fred's eight-year-old stepdaughter were under the extention of a nearby house; his first wife and nanny were buried in windswpet fields some miles away. There are undoubtedly many other victims whose fates may never be known. Yet Fred and Rose West, who committed at least nine of these murders together, continued to preserve the facade of normal married life. Friends and neighbours considered thema loving if somewhat eccentric couple, and their crimes went undetected for over twenty years. Powerful, authoritative, irresistibly compelling, FRED & ROSE documents the lives and crimes of the most notorious murderers in Britain's recent's criminal history, and offers completely new insights into these strange and tragic events.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #25168 in Books
• Published on: 1995-12-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 355 pages

About the Author
Howard Sounes was the journalist who broke the story of the Wests in the Daily Mirror in 1994. After writing Fred & Rose, he went on to write a number of books about the arts, sport and literature.

Customer Reviews

Disturbing
This book is incredibly informative and well written by author Howard Sounes. I am a seasoned reader of murder cases, especially ones involving serial killers, but nothing prepared me for the profound effect this book had on me. It left me feeling emotionally drained and exhausted, I had several sleepless nights as I tried to comprehend the enormity of what actually went on at 25 Cromwell Street. Fred and Rose did not fit into any accepted profiles of serial killers. What made this book the more daunting for me was the revelation of the scale of Rose's involvement and she is more often than not portrayed as the most vile, vicious and dominant one of the two. In fact, it seems from this account that it was Rose's sadistic lust for violent and bizarre sex that was the motivation for most of these murders. This book makes compelling reading, but don't read it last thing at night as I did, you will not sleep!! No wonder this house of horrors was eventually demolished.

Brilliant and Chilling!
Howard Sounes did a wonderful and thorough job in writing this book on Fred and Rose West. I was extremely impressed with the manner in which Sounes gave such a tremendous amount of detail about their early lives, prior to their meeting and becoming one of Britain's most villainous couples (next to Brady and Hindley), without losing the reader. His account of their years together is very well written and thought out. I highly recommend this book to any fan of true crime accounts. It's an easy read on a complex situation.

A Must
Sounes provides insight into Rose and Fred's incestuous and violent childhoods. He examines their lives from childhood to the eventual discovery of their crimes and subsequent trial. This is a great book for a non-bias account of what happened. It stays clear of emotive language because the content is poignant enough. This book is a thorough detailed account of the West's lives and is a compelling read.