Collect Beyond Belief: The Moors Murderers. The Story Of Ian Brady And Myra Hindley. Depicted By Emlyn Williams Disseminated As Script

disappointed in this. Too many phonetic accents. Great last section though. People have criticised this book for the author's style of writing, but i find that exactly the opposite it true, I like Emlyn Williams' style as it is unique and i feel it gives the narrative a kind of driving urgency,
This book is a tour de force as a study of human evil, It is well researched and planned, and i recommend it unreservedly,
I vividly remember the events of those years, Emlyn Williams enters the world of Brady and Hindley and cinematically recreates the horror, suspense and grief, Not an easy book to read, even fortysix years after its publication, Still worthwhile. The Moor Murders resonate to this day through England, the sexual assault and murder of five children by a young couple named Ian Brady and Myra Hindley who buried their victims on the moors.
Although the subject is certainly horrifying, it is a story that should be told in a straightforward manner, . . what made this couple kill, what clues led the police to suspect them, etc, This is a book best handled by a true crime writer, . . Emlyn Williams was a talented playwright, author, and actor but why he decided to write this book escapes me, His device of being the voice of Brady in the majority of the book began to irritate this reader very quickly, . . it is almost a stream of consciousness narrative that might have been more appropriate in a play and is based on supposition rather than fact.
Frankly, I had a hard time getting through it and not because of the subject but because of the maddening style, This book just wasn't for me, maybe I have read too many Ann Rule true crime stories!!

It should also be noted, that the book is outdated although that is not the fault of the author.
When Brady and Hindley were sent to prison for life in, there were only three known victims, The book was written in, In, Brady confessed to two more child murders, although one of the bodies has never been found, One of the most disturbing books I have ever read, a fantastically written book the best I have read of the moors murderers and I have read almost all published The Moors Murders are the most brutal, senseless and cold blooded killings to have occurred in Great Britain in many years.
Between Novemberand October, Ian Brady, clerk, and Myra Hindley, typist, killed at least threeand possibly as many as fiveyoung people varying in age from ten to seventeen, for no apparent motive.
On May,the two murderers were sentenced to life imprisonment capital punishment has been abolished in England, Beyond Belief, an uncanny feat of recreation of the minds, hearts, and motivations of the two killers, is the story of this case, In it Emlyn Williams has achieved superbly his objective: “The dual accuracy of history and of imaginative understanding,

The way this book was written was very annoying to me at first,
English is not my mothers tongue, well it is, she is English, : but I was raised speaking Dutch only

here is an example The author must have fabricated all the dialogues between Ian and Myra.

Ian: and if were caught which will not happen, ye must imagine yerself in an airport wi your luggage searched, its full of contra band, well ye,re just to sayye dinna ken a thing aboot it.
Ill teach ye a code,what a superbb evenin,

And this gos on continually,
Besides that I did find it interesting because I did not know anything about the Moors Murderers and the author does provide some interesting information.

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read on Marchth
True crime fans, you've never read one quite like this, Emlyn Williams' searing truelife account of the "Moors Murderers" Ian Brady and Myra Hindley exceeds "In Cold Blood" for excellence in this genre, Based on fact, this is a harrowing story composed using equal parts court records, interviews, and the author's speculation, It's bloodcurdling down to the last page, Myra Hindley died inBrady lives on in prison, If you need more current details, HBO's fantastic production of "Longford" expounds on this case by recounting Hindley's relationship with naive, wellmeaning Lord Longford, who tried to free her from prison.
Ian Brady got wind of this and stopped it by admitting to additional murders committed by the pair, and showed where at least one body was buried.
These include the cases author Williams guesses their involvement in, but were never proved in his lifetime, "Beyond Belief" is atmospheric as hell, Williams brings the midSixties of Britain shockingly to life in a startling abundance of mundane, often poignant, daily details, He does take flights of pure imagination in what they

actually said and who did what when, It's completely chilling, and completely credible, Not for the sensitive: these two abducted, tortured, and killed children, And taperecorded it. And photographed it.
This one is liable to give you nightmares, Update: I finally saw the British film "See No Evil" about this case, It flatout sucked. The more you know about this case, the worse the movie is, Avoid it. "Longford" was much better, even though they weren't the central focus,
This was a hard book to read, The subject definitely was beyond belief, But the book was published in,years before Hindley and then Brady confessed to the Moors murders even tho they had been in prison since.
So there was a lot of speculation most of the book was speculation about what actually happened, and I got the feeling that the author took Hindley's version as "truth" when init was revealed that she was much more involved than she had let on.
He was is he is still alive and still in prison definitely a psychopath, but I am totally bamboozled as to why she would have gone along with him.
She was obsessed with Brady, but how that translated into brutal torture, sexual assault and murder is beyond me, Well written, but extremely disturbing, I will definitely never forget this book, it haunts my mind, I first read this ina gift from my stepfather who encouraged my interests, no matter how morbid, Sort of a 'nonfiction novel', Williams writes half in straight reportage, and half from the imagined point of view of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley.
There is a slight danger with this it made the otherwise revolting crimes seem a little glamourized to fifteenyearold me, The dashing young psychopath and his bleached bride, Rereading it later I recognized the false sheen that adolescence puts on heinous deeds, and then realised that Brady and Hindley were not far from adolescence themselves that psychopathy keeps one in that state permanently in a way, and Williams transmits this ingeniously.
Emlyn Williams' classic account of the notorious Moors Murderers, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, who betweenandabducted, brutally abused and murdered five children Pauline Reade, John Kilbride, Keith Bennett, Lesley Ann Downey and Edward Evans and buried them in shallow graves on Saddleworth Moor, in Lancashire.
great read very haunting. very sad. This is a very strange book, If you're looking for a book about the hard facts of the case in classic true crime style, you won't find it here,

What you will find is a daring and unusual approach to one of the UK's most famous serial killer cases, The book is written almost entirely from the perspective of Brady and Hindley through heavy use of dialect in a stream of consciousness style.
The reader is taken through Brady and Hindley's lives and daily habits, It's as well written as any novel and immerses you pretty thoroughly in the setting, Reading this, I found I could picture the settings perfectly in my mind,

This book has its limits, and this isn't entirely its own fault published in, just a year after Brady and Hindley were convicted, much about the murders wouldn't be revealed until later most notably that the pair were also responsible for the murders of Pauline Reade and Keith Bennett in addition to the three victims mentioned in the book.
In lieu of solid facts Williams frequently falls on supposition and imagined conversations and the like, which doesn't sit greatly with me, as I like my true crime to be, you know, factual.


Still. An odd but interesting read, if you've ever wondered what it would be like to be in Ian and Myra's heads, The Moors Murders have a special place in the memories of those living in the shadow of the Pennines around Oldham and Ashton in thes.
I have vivid memories of the bodies being brought down to the coroner's offices and the whole, grim story being slowly revealed, This excellent book tells that story and manages to capture the atmosphere of those times in a dramatic manner, A brilliant "nonfiction novel" about the Moors Murders and in its own style, not Truman Capote's! Undercelebrated and fantastic, An interesting attempt to cover these notorious crimes, the author creates a part fictionalised account of the perpetrators motives and madness, It was written contemporaneously though so ignores the developments in the case in the eighties, thus undermining the timeline and plotting somewhat, It is very well written though, far superior to most true crime books, Don't read this hugely outdated as it was written before two of the murders were known about so it's not comprehensive,

Also pretends to be factual with a disclosure at the start but then adopts a really odd style, oftentimes emulating Brady's voice and pretending he thinks he's a king.
Those sections make for very weird reading and are dreadful,

Redeemed slightly by the presentation of the case at the end, One Of Your Own by Carol Ann Lee is much more balanced and is written really well with up to date information, This is probably one of the most accurate and thorough accounts of the Moors Murders ever, and also one of the best True Crime books ever written.


Even more haunting when you know the area, Williams really delved into the psyche, particularly of Hindley, the devout catholic who met a scottish clerk and gave up her soul willingly,
One of those books that chills you to the bone because it is all horribly true, It's not until the end of the book, when the details of what the pair actually did the photographs, the burials, the abuse is described in plain detail that the real power of the way Williams has chosen to tell their story hits home.
The book is truly haunting, You have been in the room with Brady and Hindley, you have been there for a murder, there for an abduction, there in the office and out on the Moors at night.
You have been there in Manchester,
Williams was a respected writer and poet and the book is not told in a 'normal' way, He writes in the voices of Brady and Hindley, and in local dialect, splicing the text with newspaper headlines, filmtitles and the words and speech of the other people in the story.

As a balance against sensationalist truecrime writing as well as newspaper stories, small screen and film depictions, this is wonderful, of course, Occasionally I wasnt totally gripped but there was no doubting Williams' methodology has wellpreserved the times and the people involved, Weirdly it's the little details which are so haunting now, The description of the black family moving in next door to the Hindley house and how they, and everyone else, ignored the bangs and screams on one murder night because thats just what people did on overspill estates, the regular brewing of pots of tea, the cherrypicked Marquis de Sade quotations, the descriptions of what was on the box that night, what they had to eat and what Gran shouted from the back bedroom.

How you explain Brady and Hindley You cant, They are indeed "Beyond Belief", But this chilling, honest, emotional book is a fine human response to the harm they brought upon innocent children, young people and their families and communities in Manchester in the earlys.

Having said all that, Im glad Im finished with it and will read something else tonight, . . I was probably too young to have read this book when I did early teens, but then I don't think you could ever prepare yourself to read a book like this.
I remember hearing about the case and when I saw the book I wanted to try and understand how someone, especially a woman, could get involved in such horrific crimes against children.


The four isn't because I 'enjoyed' the book, but because it's a well written, though horrifying, look at a topic that is so shocking you don't want to believe it.
It makes you believe it though by dealing with events in a fairly factual manner and by bringing many views into the book eg interviews with the people involved and including some court transcripts verbatim.
I'll NEVER forget reading the transcript of the Lesley Ann Downey tape that was played in court, I could barely read it for crying, and I think I'd still have that same reaction as an adult, At the time the book was written there was still hope that all the victims would be found, Alas that wasn't to be and Keith Bennett is still alone on Saddleworth Moor,

If you read this book you'll understand why my blood chills whenever I see that iconic photograph of Hindley, Read this as a teenager, Excellent account of the infamous Moors murderers, This book is completely out of date, Both factually and with it's immensely patronising, insulting and confusing method of trying to recreate the Yorkshire accent and dialect, It was actually embarrassing to read and somehow reduced the horror of the account,
I wanted to find out about this case as it all happened around the time i was born, I don't feel any the wiser, .