THE PROFESSION OF VIOLENCE: The Rise and Fall of the Kray Twins

by John Pearson ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 28, 1973

The crime-confessional is now in vogue and no wonder -- we have developed a mock-heroic appreciation of practicing thuggery in these recent times of stupid-bomb slaughter, reticulated police corruption, casual muggings and trashings, daylight rapes and killings, and Hessian Super Bowls where smelling salts gets the game ball. Our humanity has become a casualty of the daily encounter with the tabloids and the evening news; we thrill to the Godfathers and the exploits of fat Vince Teresa (My Life in the Mafia, p. 50). Cashing in on this veneration of criminality, the Kray twins, Reggie and Ronnie, once ""the two most dangerous men in Britain"" -- London thieves, extortionists, blackmailers, murderers -- pined for an ""official biography"": ""like so many businessmen,"" explains Pearson, ""the twins wanted somebody to write up their achievement,"" the Krays further explaining with the gall of a whore that ""So much rubbish gets written about our sort of people."" They found their pimp. Pearson gloriously gives us their ""career"" from Mile End to Mayfair, from thirty-bob brutality to sophisticated gambling nightclubbery, to peddling purple hearts, dividing the territory with Jack Spot and sharing the headlines with Lord Boothby, to the Caruana murder and the suitcase murder and the crossbow murder, to their rackets and methods and wondrous escapes and their Berettas -- you see, ""in their way"" the twins were ""very honest. They both loved violence. They loathed the law. They believed in being what they were."" The almost perfect pimp. Almost because Pearson does make little moans on the final pages about how Reggie and Ronnie's ""rise to power shows just how fragile the whole skin of order is in Britain"" (they are currently in Parkhurst Gaol for good -- or bad), but these pro forma absolutions cannot obscure the tone here, which is that crime is a goddamn more interesting lifestyle than you or I have; at one time the Kray twins were ""like royalty."" This book is symptomatic of something awfully wrong with our values.

Pub Date: March 28, 1973

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Saturday Review Press

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1973

Categories: NONFICTION