e. all of us) is becoming more aware that domestic violence is a bigger, and more complex, issue than previously perceived and I would like this book to be required reading for a far wider group of people - it is only going to be through understanding that the outcomes for more victims can be changed.

Even our legal system legitimises the idea that people who hurt or kill their partners have snapped and lost control, committed a 'crime of passion'.

Just yesterday I was reading of a man who stabbed his ex wife and the judge said the Surrey police had to take some responsibility because they had not taken the women's predicament seriously and had made up their minds that the husband wasn't a danger. Had I read this book or something like it years ago, it would've opened my eyes to my own, thankfully short coercive relationship. Being able to recognise these stages of the eight timeline is a key issue that should be learnt more to be able to keep women safe from a worryingly statistic of intimate homicide. Part case study, part social commentary and part memoir of a woman dealing with domestic homicide, ‘In Control’ shows that there are clear signs when a relationship is about to turn violent – we’ve just been trained not to see them. Using this the author debunks the myths of 'crimes of passion' and also looks at how the victim in these cases is often unheard and somehow deserved their treatment.

As a former police officer, what would you like to see the police do about domestic control and violence? It is something I would have hoped would be difficult to find information on (as if to believe it wasn’t so common). That's not to say the relationship will always reach that critical eighth stage, many will get as far as stage five before the cycle starts over, either with a new partner or with someone who has been dragged unwillingly back to an abusive relationship. As mentioned quite a few times in the book, society needs to stop excusing the perpetrators and blaming victims. It is disappointing and scary to realise that there are endless examples of this controlling behaviour and abuse that can be drawn upon.The clues are very often there in what the person says about themselves and maybe more importantly what other people say about them. We already accept that a history of control or domestic abuse is predictive of more abuse because we’ve got the domestic violence disclosure scheme. What you think you would do is go in all guns blazing, get everyone to see sense, remove your daughter from the relationship and then it’s all over. In control: Dangerous relationships and how they end in murder by Jane Monckton-Smith © Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.