The Krays: The Prison Years

The book is entitled "The Prison Years" but the first 70-odd pages are a tired re-hash of the Krays criminal activities leading up to their incarceration, which most readers will already be familair with. When the book eventually does get on to "The Prison Years", the chapters are padded out with long drawn-out descriptions of the history of the prison and previous prisoners. When describing HMP Parkhurst on the Isle of Wight, the authors decide to list and describe other prisons on the island, not sure how this is relevant.The rest of the book is made up of anti-climatic stories, such as "Prisoner A attacked Prisoner B, Prisoner C came to Prisoner B's aid. Prisoners B and C were thrown in isolation along with Ronnie Kray who told staff they'd got it wrong. Then it was all sorted out and Prisoner A was put in isolation". Yawn.I always try to finish a book once I start, but gave up with this one. Plenty of other, better books out there about the Krays.

Cannot say I have read it. Was for a gift

This book covers the period from just before The Twins, Charlie Kray and the rest of the firm were put away up until the end.It's a no hold bars look at the trials and tribulations inside various prisons for Reg and prison and Broadmoor for Ron. Countless stories are told from those who were there or around, some funny, some sad, all insightful. All very well written by the authors and from decent sources.The lingering feeling is that their sentences were very harsh but came about because of their legend. Sad but true. A great, grown up read that's a journey into a tough world with tough men surviving.

This is a strange book. It’s lazily written using an abundance of speech marks as if what you’re reading is a collection of actual quotes, as though someone was taking minutes during conversations between villains in prison.There are, however, a lot of witness accounts of what went on whilst the Kray twins (there’s barely anything on brother Charlie’s times inside) were at Her Majesty’s Pleasure.The biggest problem I had with this book is the total lack of any photos or images within its pages. I felt I needed to have more than just a mental picture of those parties that contributed to this work. I appreciate that photographs of prison life are hard to come by but, as many of the friends & associates of The Firm did attract their own publicity during their time spent with the Kray twins, surely a few images would help readers who are not on first name terms with them to better understand the people we are hearing from?Apparently, the book is based on a Discovery Channel documentary. I’m going to try & find that & perhaps I’ll get the imagery I needed.

This was bought for my dad so I can’t personally comment but based on his feedback, it was a very interesting and informative read. He couldn’t put it down once he started reading it. The delivery, the presentation and general service was as always up to Amazon standards!

Fantastic cant put the book down an insight to what life was like behind bars and more.

Arrived in perfect condition and a good book

Bought as a gift for my brother