Product Description

When Kate married gangster Ronnie Kray he introduced her to some of the most feared criminals Britain has ever known. She persuaded them to open their hearts to her and talk about their crimes, fears and dreams. Featured in this book are such killers as John Straffen, Britain's longest-serving lifer. He has shunned publicity and interviews throughout his years inside, but has agreed to speak only to Kate Kray. Harry Roberts, the cop killer whose conviction led to a blaze of publicity, opens his heart out to Kate as does Linda Calvey, dubbed the Black Widow. Kate has also spoken to the Black Widow's husband, the notorious Danny Reece.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #839508 in Books
• Published on: 2003-02-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 315 pages

Customer Reviews

Naive and Muddled
The authoress appears to specialize in people most of us prefer to avoid: gangsters, murderers, armed robbers and what by most people's standards would be called lunatics, even if judicially determined to be sane. This book contains some valuable criminological insights and some penological ones too (I myself was shocked that disabled prisoners just have to get along like the rest, even if paralyzed and wheelchair-bound --- that cannot be right in a civilized society). On the whole, though, the writer seems too easily taken in by her more verbose subjects. She thinks Harry Roberts, who killed some police detectives in 1966, extremely clever and even very intelligent, yet is that really so? So he knows what is a "coppice" and can define it closely. Ten out of ten for pedantry, Mr Roberts, but I suppose one has time to read dictionaries in prison, especially in 40 years. And the crimes of this man were pretty unintelligent: assaulting pensioners to rob them, off the cuff robberies and burglaries with little planning or real foresight behind them. And when on the run from his police shooting, he chose Epping Forest! Sorry, not impressed...and even less impressed by his shooting of a rabbit, a family pet which frightened him (!) as he crept through a garden. A complete idiot for my money, Ms. Kray. This book is just a random selection of killers, some "normal" (like the man who arranged to have his business partner hurt, that man being killed by stupid would-be hitmen who then blackmailed the arranger), some supposedly intelligent like Roberts or the "Essex Motorcycle Bandit" who robbed post offices (again though, he could not stop, never went outside Essex and got shot and paralyzed and caught by his own negligence really); some of the killers are just mad or retarded, like Straffen, the child strangler and the boy who killed a supposedly perverse vicar. It makes one realize that the police have a lot of their work done by their own prey. Interesting in parts, but not much of a book.

The worst book I have ever read!
I agree with the above review that this book was extremely poorly edited but it was also badly written. The author uses this opportunity to present the story as a part-autobiography and strays from the subject and jumps back and forth, chronilogically, at will. Warning to pet lovers: there's a disturbing passage in which the author stupidly allows his dog to die. It has no business in a book about Jill Dando and her murder. Perhaps it's indicative of the lack of actual information available about the case at the time and the rush to capitalize on it. I knew from the introduction, wherein the author displays his distaste for people and apathy for their demise, that I was in trouble, but my interest in the purported subject matter was enough to keep me reading on. Although, after the dog incident, I merely scanned the following pages, looking for relevant information, until the book mercifully came to an end. A muddled stew.

A great book, but poorly edited
McIvor's book deserves a five-star rating, but sadly it is let down by its editing which is why I have downgraded it to four. By way of example, one complete paragraph is repeated on consecutive pages in the opening chapter! The poor editing can be explained (if not forgiven) by the fact that the book must have been produced in a hurry to capitalize on the story of Jill Dando's murder, since it managed to be in the bookstores very soon after the trial of her killer, Barry George.

The story describes the murder investigation from McIvor's perspective, in his role as a journalist in the immediate aftermath to the crime, during 12 months of police investigation and at the George's trial. McIvor's tells of his own involvement which began in the immediate aftermath of the murder, and it follows his own processes of deduction (some of which he admits proved wrong) as to the culprit and his motive. The reader has to decide for himself whether or not to accept McIvor's final conclusions; notwithstanding they are both breathtaking and haunting - and in this reader's opinion, convincing.

There are many instances where one is forced to wonder if Mcivor's disorganized presentation of the events described in his story is deliberate or the result of poor editing. Bits of information are fed into the story in an apparently haphazard manor - indeed one or two important pieces of evidence don't appear until the final chapter. In most instances this doesn't detract too much from the presentation of the story - and in some cases it might even be said to add to the suspense. I feared at odd times that I had missed important bits of information but in the end this proved unfounded - the missing details were to be found sooner or later in the story.

The reader does not have to make any allowances for McIvor's working-class background or his criminal record (which he freely owns up to). He makes full use of both, combining them with his obvious abilities as a writer and a wonderful ability to mix Cockney colloquial with scholarly similes. By any standards, he is a very gifted story-teller.

McIvor honours neither the living nor the dead except where he considers it due; whilst he pulls no punches in his blunt assessments of peoples' failures, he expressly (and graciously) honours three players in his drama including two witnesses and the judge in George's trial. Moreover, McIvor displays his fundamental honestly in what is undoubtedly the most moving passage in the book in which describes the death of his dog. By contrast, he makes no pretence at feigning sorrow at the death of Ms Dando who he did not know personally.

If this weren't a true story, it would make excellent crime-fiction - except that I expect it would be rejected as too fantastic even for novel-lovers. I strongly recommend the book but urge the publisher to tidy it up before running into a second edition.