The Krays : their life behind bars

Best-selling author Robin McGibbon was welcomed into the inner sanctum of the Kray twins.

For more than ten years, he saw Britain's most notorious killers at close quarters - Reggie in top-security prisons, his bisexual brother, Ron, in Broadmoor's hospital for the criminally insane.

As a well-connected, valued friend, who had ghost-written older brother Charlie's autobiography, McGibbon spoke to the twins on visits, on the phone, and corresponded regularly by post.

He became such a trusted confidant, he advised on media and personal matters, negotiated TV rights to Ronnie's funeral, and his wife was so admired by the Kray family she was asked to speak on Reggie's behalf in church.

Drawing on that first-hand experience, and revealing, for the first time, confidential details of letters to and from the twins, McGibbon describes their contrasting personalities: the infuriating mood swings and egomania of the hyper, more aggressive, Reggie, and the gentle courtesy and generosity of his paranoid-schizophrenic twin, who revealed, in an exclusive interview, the real reason behind one of the Kray's legendary murders - and personal memories he had never shared with anyone but family. McGibbon, a former national newspaper journalist, who ghost-wrote Barbara Windsor's best-selling autobiography, "All of Me", has written a pacy narrative, coloured with a cast of supporting characters - from the Yorkshire Ripper, TV stars and Page Three Girls to gangland hierarchy and convicted criminals the twins befriended in prison.

With sensational revelations that should guarantee newspaper serialisation, it is an enthralling and compelling read that describes for the first time the bizarre lives the twins led after an Old Bailey judge jailed them in 1969, saying that society had 'earned a rest' from their activities.

It is a genuine 'inside' story of the country's most infamous killers, whose terrifying violence shocked the nation and made them underworld legends.