DAILY MAIL Since May 1966 when Ian Brady and Myra Hindley were sentenced to life imprisonment at Chester Assizes the British public has been absorbed and horrified by the Moors Murders. Frankly, I had a hard time getting through it and not because of the subject but because of the maddening style. 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.

When authorities finally found two bodies buried in the moor (both were young children), the investigation began and soon, one more body was found (that of a young man) in the Brady/Hindley home.

The victims: Pauline Reade, Lesley Ann Downey, John Kilbride, Keith Bennett, and Edward Evans were aged between 10 and 17 years old. I know quite a bit about this case, so to speak, but I was still intrigued and wanted to see if this book would give me a different account of what happened, or delve deeper into the court proceedings or something else novel. The focus on the victims was sensitive and yet this still delivered to the reader all of the facts surrounding the horrors the duo enacted. People talked about how great she was with kids, how much kids loved her, parents loved her, she babysat for free!

It is dark beyond comprehension but perhaps that explains the enduring fascination of this irredeemable pair.Prison letters written by Brady in 1965, which were due to remain closed until 2027, show that he made no attempt to disguise his depravity.

It is the combination of these elements that set this book, and all the books on this list, above the voyeuristic or exploitative.

They also took numerous photographs and audio tapes of the murders which helped the police find the graves. Ian Brady and Myra both had a difficult upbringing, but Ian had a more stable upbringing than Myra did.