I know Manchester well having lived there for a number of years with close friends and relatives related through marriage. What strikes you about "Mancunians" is their tough northern yet always friendly approach, and their unique sense of loyalty and close family ties. This was never greater than in the 1950's and 60's when money was poor, poverty was rife and yet those little communities of proud people living in back to back terraced houses looked after and supported each other always adhering to the code...what is mine is yours.

What is most striking and deeply concerning about Myra Hindley is that she was an intricate part of this community with roots and family embedded in the culture truly one of their own. So how could someone from such a staunch and close knit background emerge and become the cold hearted killer and partner to the psychotic Ian Brady.

Carol Ann Lee describes and shows in great detail how the young and emerging Myra progressed and indeed flourished in this tough working class environment. Yes there were many and varied challenges; her father Bob suffering from the stresses of the 2ndWW and physically abusing his family in conjunction with his heavy consumption of alcohol; the death of her close friend Michael Higgins due to a drowning accident when she was only 15; the disruption to family life which resulted in her living with her beloved grandmother Ellen. However amidst all of this a headstrong, tough (she had been taught to box by Bob as a young child) yet likeable and friendly girl was emerging into her teens and beyond. So what went wrong? How did someone with this strong community upbringing emerge into the cold blooded killer we all recognize today?
The spark that ignited the fire occurred when she became a typist at Millwards Merchandising and made the acquaintance of one Ian Brady. One of the central themes explored in this book is whether Hindley, if she had never met Brady, would still have become a cold blooded killer. She played such a central role in Brady's manic killing sprees (with his Hitler and Marquis De Sade fascinations) and yet afterwards had well connected support from such notorieties as David Astor Observer editor, and Lord Longford. I feel the answer to this question will always be yes; she was bored looking for adventure, looking for danger something way beyond the confines of Gorton, Manchester and it's mundane routine existence. She was a keen and willing partner in the psychotic ramblings and cruel sexual games and actions performed on her by Brady and so when he suggested his ultimate fantasy of capturing and killing a child she readily agreed and not only helped this happen but eagerly participated in the many horror killings that were to follow. The true story of what occurred was discovered on a tape in a left luggage bag at Manchester Central Station through the anguished and distressed cry from one frightened little girl Lesley Anne Downey who just wanted to see her mummy.

For anyone interested in the Moors Murders and trying to understand the reasoning behind the senseless torturous killing of innocent children this book is essential reading. It is informative, well researched and gives a clear and incisive insight into the minds of two of the 20th century's most hated murderers Myra Hindley and Ian Brady. ( )

Years after her death, and many years after the crimes that catapulted her to the heights of infamy, Myra Hindley continues to haunt us. Who was she, really? To what extent did she participate in the Moors Murders? And above all, why?

To anyone who is interested in finding out the truth, One of Your Own is about as good a place to look as any. Well-researched and impartial, it attempts to recover something of the person behind the figurehead of female notoriety. Great attention is paid to Hindley’s childhood, which was rough but not exceptional by the standards of working-class Manchester in the 1940s and ‘50s, and to the strange dynamic of her relationship with Ian Brady. The murders themselves are covered in detail, and may be distressing to some readers.

We’ll probably never know the exact truth behind the murders; Hindley’s account of her involvement and Brady’s are often at odds, and neither of them were reliable. Everyone seems to agree that Hindley played a secondary role, but it’s not plausible to argue – as Hindley and her supporters frequently did – that she was bullied and threatened into compliance. In all likelihood, no one will ever know quite why she behaved as she did.

Hindley wasn’t worse than Brady, but he has never attracted quite the same level of loathing. I’ve a theory that Brady – who is certainly psychopathic – is easily categorised and dismissed. He’s ‘mad’ or ‘evil’, depending on whether you believe in God or Freud; he is, at any rate, not normal, and therefore not like the rest of us. Hindley was different, more complicated. The woman who participated in the abduction and murder of children was also the cheery, reliable teenager who was much in demand as a babysitter; the scowling peroxide blonde of that infamous police mug shot was also the smiling brunette who studied Humanities, cuddled animals, and was apparently genuinely loved by some of her circle.

Hindley once said that if she’d never met Brady she’d have lived an entirely normal life. And perhaps – and this is a sinister thought – she was, in essence, ‘normal’, but with a frighteningly dark side that only required the right circumstances to make itself known. Like the concentration camp guards who went home, kissed their wives and played with their children, she raises serious, urgent questions about human nature itself.

I’ll leave the final word to Lee herself: ‘“She had no judgement,” one obituary in The Independent read. But judgement was precisely what Myra Hindley had – in a sense, it is all any of us have – and she chose to use it with the most wicked of intent.’
( )

Finally finished it this morning. Not a quick read because I kept on flipping to the links and I mostly only read in bed which means only in the evening.

For the first time I think I am going to point to someone else's review. I think she said it all.

Anastasia's Review. Feel free to like ;)

I do want to say that I was so annoyed by those rich goodie 2 shoes who were always supporting Myra, financially and mentally but did not have any feelings or care for the victims families. (Just like Myra didn't)

The first book I'd read about the Moors Murders was Beyond belief by Emlyn Williams. (I think I gave that book a 5. no a 4) so the impact to this book was not as huge as it was to the linked reviewer. I would give this book 4 stars.

My Review of Beyond Belief

Weird way of punishing system and giving Jail Time in UK and The Netherlands
Thinking about it my opinion is that who ever sets to purposely murder a child,as an adult, should be punished with life in prison. No talk about early releases or giving someone life which is not life at all!

(Meaning only 21 years but that is considered still way too much and the prisoners only have to sit out 1/3rd of the time of their punishment. It is the same here in the Netherlands. Why? Why give them a punishment but that the rule,system is to only have one third of that having to be in jail. So instead of 30 years, just tell us they only got 10 years.

Oh this makes me so angry. I would love to know what the reasons is for that weird decisions in various countries.

ETA: I checked Wikipedia. Here in The Netherlands live is really live. Aha so that is why nobody hardly is been given this punishment.

Also if you have a jail time of more than 2 years you have to sit in jail for at least 2/3rd of that time.(so not 1/3)

The problem is more that if you murder someone you only get 9 years (max) and they will be free in 6 years! (if not sooner)

(Sorry for my English. Today I couldn't find the correct English words> Guess I need more coffee)

Although the book was 400+ pages of small print, I read it all in a day, more or less in one sitting. It was gripping, to say the least. I'd never read a book on the Moors Murders though I'd read plenty about it online and shorter pieces in other true crime books. I think this is the only book anyone would have to read to get a thorough review of the case. Myra is quite impenetrable but I think this author comes about as close as it's possible to go, to pull back all the masks and show her for who she really was. Ian Brady is much easier to understand as a typical serial child-killer, and one with a diagnosed mental illness.

To use a comparison from the book, Myra reminds me a lot of the Nazi war criminals. If she had never met Ian Brady, she probably would have become an ordinary housewife and never committed any violent crimes at all. Most of the Nazi war criminals who weren't immediately arrested went on to lead ordinary, nonviolent postwar lives, and I'm sure that if Myra had been released from prison at some point after she got out from under Brady's spell, she wouldn't have committed any more crimes like the atrocities she and Brady had done together. Yet she was fully responsible for what she did. I think she genuinely TRIED to feel remorseful, if only because everyone demanded it, but she seems to have been incapable of the depth of feeling, the empathy, necessary for that. The nasty things she said about her victims' parents behind their backs is proof positive of that. It's like she was just defective, like some wiring was missing inside her.

To use another comparison, the case kinds of reminds me of the situation in Truman Capote's true crime classic In Cold Blood: two people who might neither have been terribly dangerous by themselves come together and feed off each other and commit far greater crimes than either of them would have been capable of alone. Ian Brady needed Myra to do what he did. To begin with he needed a woman's help to lure the children into the car, but he also needed someone to confide in, and someone who would worship him and egg him on.

Way to go, Carol Ann Lee. This book meets the gold standard for true crime: thoroughly researched, accurate, insightful and not sensationalized a bit. You achieved what you set out to do. ( )