Paperback: "When she did what she did, she was not mad - as Brady was - and although she was young, she was an adult, and an intelligent one. It seems to me that there are strands of moral deformity which cannot be pardoned: that Stangl was right when, having faced the truth about himself, he said, "I ought to be dead."" - Diana Athill, one of Britain's finest literary editors and writers.
On 15 November 2002, Myra Hindley died in prison, one of the rare women whose crimes were deemed so indefensible that 'life' really did mean 'life'. Without a doubt, Britain's most notorious murderess, her death has done nothing to diminish the shadow she casts across our collective consciousness.
But who was the woman behind the headlines? How could a seemingly normal girl, with no intimations of violence in her character, grow up to commit such terrible acts? Her defenders - many of them high-profile defenders - claim she fell under Ian Brady's spell, but is this the truth?
Was her insistence that she had changed, that she felt deep remorse and had reverted to the Catholicism of her childhood genuine or a calculating bid to win parole?
One Of Your Own (2010) explores these questions and many others, drawing on a wide range of resources, including Hindley's own unseen writings, hundreds of recently released prison files, fresh interviews, and extensive new research. It is the first in-depth study of Hindley, returning her humanity to her and thereby revealing the woman and her crimes in the context of our collective history.
Scrupulously researched and compellingly well written, this book is the challenging, definitive biography of Britain's 'most-hated woman'.
About the author: Carol Ann Lee is the highly acclaimed English author of several books, including
One of Your Own: The Life and Death of Myra Hindley, Witness: The Story of David Smith, A Fine Day for a Hanging: The Real Ruth Ellis Story and
The Murders at White House Farm: Jeremy Bamber and the killing of his family.
Witness, her tenth book, and
A Fine Day for a Hanging were both shortlisted for CWA Non-Fiction Dagger Awards.
Witness aka
Evil Relations (2012), was written in conjunction with David Smith, chief prosecution witness in the Moors Murders case it details, for the first time, Smith's story in full.
She has written extensively on the Holocaust. Following her ground-breaking research on Anne Fran, the Dutch government reopened the investigation into the Frank family's betrayal. She is also the author of two novels and three books for children. Her works have been published in fifteen countries.
