MURDER WITHOUT CONVICTION Inside the World of the Krays.

Hardback. For 3yrs the author was closely associated with the Kray Twins, acting as their driver on many occasions. He drove Ronnie Kray to the Blind Beggar pub in Whitechapel Road the night George Cornell was shot. A former marine commando, he came to London from Edinburgh in 1964 in search of work - and excitement. He and his friend Ian found it in the pubs and card clubs of the East End. There they met the Kray twins and the rest of the 'firm' - as the Krays' gang was called. Slowly and relentlessly they were drawn into the world of these infamous crooks - collecting protection money from illegal gaming and drinking clubs, running errands, doing 'favours', entertaining celebrities in the flashier West End nightspots. But dominating everything were the twins' ambition and their violent unpredictable tempers. The murders of George Cornell, Jack 'the Hat' McVitie and 'Mad Axeman' Frank Mitchell stemmed largely from the latter, while the East Enders' traditional silence in the face of police questioning helped feed their ambitions, making the twins feel invincible. They were not, of course, and the arrests of the twins and other members of the firm makes an exciting climax to the book. This, the first inside account of the gang that dominated the East End of London for most of the 1960s, reads like a thriller, but is based entirely on fact. Illus. + Index. 164pp. 8vo. h/back. Vg. in Vg. sl. shelf-worn dw.