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Title: Beyond Belief: A Chronicle of Murder and Its Detection by Emlyn Williams ISBN: 0-06-060775-0 Publisher: Harpercollins Pub. Date: 01 June, 1976 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $8.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (4 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: True Crime Merges With Poetry
Comment: Emlyn Williams was creatively gifted as a playwright and actor. His two enduring plays were "Night Must Fall" and "The Corn Is Green." A man who spent his writing life in the fictional realm provided himself a challenge and turned his prodigious talents to true crime. The result is a merger of true crime with the poetry of a true creative artist in "Beyond Belief."
Ian Brady grew up living with guardians in a lower middle class section of Glasgow. When his mother, who bore him out of wedlock, marries, he goes to live with her for the first time. His move to the English Midlands finds him leading a solitary life in which he lives for the cinema. Williams shows us how a dangerous pattern is established early on when he yens for films of violence, identifies closely with the villain Harry Lime played brilliantly by Orson Welles in "The Third Man," and abhors love story-musicals such as those with Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald, which he ridicules.
When he is working in a factory as a stock clerk in Gorton, a suburb of Manchester, he meets Myra Hindley for the first time. In many ways the large, voluptuous woman is more masculine than Brady. Williams brilliantly delineates a perceived identity crisis that he believes could have turned them both in the wrong direction.
William does an excellent job of showing us the lower middle class despair of young people growing up in sixties' England. He uses the dialect of the young, uneducated working class to evoke the kind of atmosphere associated with the best of novel writing. The cast of characters rings true throughout.
Eventually the couple turns to crime in a big way. Brady abducts children and perpetrates murders while Myra, who appears hypnotized by Ian, terminates her assertiveness in his case and becomes his subservient accomplice.
The author makes his sociological points without ever being preachy. His page-turning style is riveting as readers learn little by little about these two young people whose lives become living hells for themselves and those they encounter.
Rating: 5
Summary: A haunting read.
Comment: Unlike many books concerning true crime, Williams' account of the Moors Murders is neither sensationalistic, nor cold in its recounting of the facts. By weaving fact with some fictional (yet highly believable) dialogue to "fill in the blanks" of what is known, Williams gives the reader an astonishing glimpse into the private world of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley. It is simply one of the best books I've ever read. The story itself is fascinating, both as a psychological study, and for the incredible detective work that led to the couple's arraignment. Absolutely un-put-downable. Incidentally, passages from the book are woven into a song called "Suffer The Children" by Mancunian band, The Smiths.
Rating: 5
Summary: A chilling and poignant read
Comment: This book portrays a variety of emotions -- anger, confusion, heartbreak, nostalgia. Williams did a great job of trying to fathom the crimes of Hindley and Brady. I've written about the case myself, in fictional form, and this was not only an outstanding research source but one of the saddest, most elegiac books I've ever read. I hope the name Emlyn Williams is not too obscure these days; he was apparently a gifted actor as well as writer and playwright.
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Title: The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule ISBN: 0451203267 Publisher: Signet Book Pub. Date: 12 June, 2001 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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