Book summary “The profession of violence”: summary

Introduction

You want to understand how absolute power corrupts and how organized crime operates from within. John Pearson reveals this through the biography of Ronald and Reginald Kray, commissioned originally by a New York Mafia lawyer. You explore the brutal East End social environment that shaped two ordinary boys into London's most feared gangsters.

Identical twins Ronald and Reginald Kray built a ruthless criminal empire in post-war London by combining absolute theatrical violence, protection rackets, and systemic political corruption.

You trace their terrifying ascent from childhood poverty through military rebellion and violent protection rackets. The book details their bloody gangland power struggles and their disastrous expansion into West End gambling. You witness how unchecked paranoia and murder finally triggered their dramatic arrest by Detective Superintendent Nipper Read.

• How do twins forge an unbreakable bond of criminal violence?
• What mechanisms of political corruption protect murderous gangsters from justice?
• Why do organized criminal empires inevitably collapse from internal paranoia?

1. Family Roots and Childhood

The Kray twins emerged from a harsh East End matriarchy and a family background of itinerant trading, boxing, and strict underworld codes of silence.

In 1929, Dr. Lange from the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute studied criminal twins using Bavarian Ministry of Justice records. Identical twins showed a drastically higher concordance rate for criminal behavior than non-identical twins. Lange discovered that ten out of thirteen identical twin pairs both had criminal records.

Biological Theories of Crime

You trace the roots of the Kray family through this lens of hereditary traits and tough survival. The twins' father, Charles Kray, made a successful living as an itinerant second-hand clothes and gold dealer in the East End. Charles traveled to distant counties with ready money, gold scales, and a wardrobe bag, relying on persistent door-to-door sales tactics known as pestering. Charles regularly bought gold and silver from homeowners on confidence and sold his acquisitions every Sunday morning to Abe Sokolok in Black Lion Yard. He made twenty to thirty pounds a week from gold alone when the average East End family income was seventeen shillings a week.

The East End Matriarchy

East End survival relied heavily on a strong matriarchal family structure and local clans to counter brutal poverty and harsh living conditions. Families in areas like Bethnal Green endured extreme malnutrition, poor housing, and high mortality rates. A 1923 government report noted that sixty per cent of the children of Bethnal Green suffered from malnutrition, while eighty-five per cent of the housing was unsatisfactory.

Grandfather John "Cannonball" Lee was a famous local showman and strict patriarch who ruled his family with Victorian severity. Cannonball earned money by licking a white-hot poker, walking with his young son on a five-gallon bottle, and performing his famous barrel trick involving twenty-four lemonade bottles and a set of steps.

Reggie and Ronnie developed an intense, telepathic codependency that was exacerbated by a severe childhood bout of illness. At three years old, the twins contracted measles and diphtheria. Ronnie grew apathetic while isolated for three months at Homerton isolation ward. Violet insisted on bringing him home and nursed him back to health, permanently shifting the emotional balance between the brothers.

The traditional East End criminal underworld operated under a strict code of violence, intimidation, and absolute silence towards the police. Local villains lived by reputations for ruthlessness, running protection rackets, and rejecting conventional society while maintaining a strict neighborhood omertà known as the eleventh commandment of not grassing. Boxing served as a legitimate outlet for the twins' combativeness and a path to notoriety. At sixteen years old, the twins turned professional and bought their first revolver.

2. National Service and Army Rebellion

Military conscription served as a vital training ground where the twins mastered institutional manipulation, formed criminal networks, and embraced a non-caring philosophy.

National Service offered an invaluable training ground for you to observe how large institutions operate. Without two years spent in contact with the army, the twins would never have taken over the East End with such speed. They learned how to exploit bureaucratic weaknesses and test their own resilience.

On the 2nd of March 1952, the twins arrived at the Waterloo Building in the Tower of London for National Service. They walked out on a corporal trying to drill them, struck him when he grabbed them, and returned home to Vallance Road for tea.

The Army as a Training Ground

Operating as identical twins provided a psychological multiplier effect that created confusion and invulnerability. Authorities struggled to pin blame on either brother during disciplinary hearings and assaults.

When brought before the Commanding Officer for knocking out an NCO on their first day, the twins shrugged in unison and played their classic game of mistaken identity.

Military detention barracks and prisons functioned as crucial networking hubs. Through prolonged stints in guardrooms, Wormwood Scrubs, Canterbury, and Shepton Mallet, the twins connected with career criminals and borstal escapees.

In the Tower guardroom, they met Dickie Morgan, a battered thief from Mile End who introduced them to the networks of East London. Dickie Morgan had served a 4-year sentence at Portland Borstal.

The twins adopted the philosophy of the non-caring criminal. They concluded that ordinary straight life is boring and that ultimate goals involve acquiring and spending money. Tommy Smithson, a Soho gambling club runner and dedicated non-carer who fought until he died of gunshot wounds in 1958, became one of their primary heroes.

Canterbury Guardroom Rebellion

The twins used calculated theatrical performances, including feigned madness and unblinking composure, to terrorize authority figures. Ronnie cultivated a persona of mental instability that made guards handle them with extreme caution.

At Canterbury guardroom, Ronnie shaved only half his face and threw a latrine bucket over an immaculate colour sergeant who came to inspect them.

During months of awaiting court-martial, the twins turned the guardroom into a zone of anarchy. Their court-martial took place on the 11th of June 1953.

They organized a breakout just before Easter, commandeered a coal lorry after fleeing into a railway goods yard, and marched sixty miles toward London before being caught at Eltham. They spent 9 months serving a sentence at Shepton Mallet army prison before their release in the spring of 1954.

The lucrative West End criminal market was already monopolized by established bosses, forcing newcomers to carve out a niche. In the 1950s, the West End was tied up by Kings of the Underworld Jack Spot and Billy Hill. In 1952, the twins met Tony Mulla, beginning their long-firm frauds and networking in late-night hotel lounges.

3. The Regal and Protection Rackets

The twins established their criminal dominance by taking over a Bethnal Green billiard hall, running systematic protection rackets, and deploying uncompromised brutality.

Establishing Headquarters

Taking over physical hubs allows emerging gangs to centralize power and attract criminal networks. You can acquire a failing venue for a nominal weekly fee and turn it into a protected sanctuary.

The Kray twins offered the owners 5 pounds a week to take over The Regal in Eric Street, stopping the mysterious nightly violence instantly upon acceptance. The 14 tables housed local thieves, ex-convicts, and aspiring criminals who gathered safely without police interference.

You manage this base with specific rules to keep operations smooth:

• run the tables and refreshment bar to keep the place in order;
• keep the hall open day and night;
• provide lock-up cubicles under the seats for thieves' tools;
• store stolen goods round the back of the hall;
• arrange transport and act as an introductions bureau for criminals.

Fighting Techniques and Scams

Uncompromising brutality and the abandonment of fair-play conventions provide a decisive tactical advantage in street brawls. Ronnie weighed twelve and a half stone at 5 feet 10 inches, while Reggie weighed eleven stone when the twins became a formidable, unstoppable pair by their twenty-second birthday.

Reggie perfected the cigarette punch, offering a cigarette with his right hand and striking the opponent's jaw with a swift left as they opened their mouth. Unlike ordinary street fighters, you hit first and hardest, put the boot in afterwards, and use a knife or sharpened cutlass for cutting faces or backsides.

Sophisticated swindles and sting operations can be turned against greedy criminals who try to acquire illicit goods for nothing. Reggie and a thief named Ozzie set up a fake forged-note deal involving 1500 pounds where Ozzie called the police station pretending a wife was being murdered, causing the victim to flee and leave behind his money. Reggie gave Ozzie a 50 pounds tip after the victim received a 25 pounds fine from the police.

4. Gangland Power Struggles

By challenging established underworld bosses like Jack Spot and Billy Hill, the Kray organization expanded its influence while supporting incarcerated associates.

Early Power Struggles

The Kray twins used public appearances at traditional gangland gatherings to visibly display contempt for the older generation of criminals and signal their bid for power. At the 1955 Epsom Spring Meeting, arranged via an alliance with Jack Spot, the twins ostentatiously ignored the races and the leading West End gangsters, drinking and laughing to show they feared no one and intended to take over.

At Epsom, when warned by an Italian gangster that they were risking their lives by associating with Jack Spot, Ronnie and Reggie laughed, offered him a drink, and later ignored Billy Hill's toughs completely. Spot and Hill operated like businessmen, drawing profits from discreet monopolies and protection while keeping good relations with the police and avoiding public disorder to ensure criminal prosperity. Spot and Hill ran the West End for over ten profitable years by making arrangements with rival Italian and Maltese gangs instead of engaging in continuous turf wars. Billy Hill had spent seventeen of his thirty-eight years in places of detention.

Ronnie Kray's impulsive gun violence created severe legal jeopardy that required sophisticated fixing by senior East End fixers to evade prison. When Ronnie shot a docker in a dispute over a car sale, he was arrested for attempted murder; however, local fixers manipulated the witness testimonies, alibis, and police evidence to secure an acquittal and compensate the victim. Red-face Tommy Plumley arranged for the wounded docker's memory to turn vague at the trial in exchange for capital to open a sweet-shop, while Reggie provided unshakeable alibis. The dispute sparked over a second-hand Austin Eight car priced at £120, and the car-site owner paid over £3,000 before the matter was concluded. Ronnie later received three years' imprisonment for causing grievous harm to Terence Martin in 1956.

Reggie's Enterprise and Ronnie's Breakdown

The Kray organization built deep criminal loyalty by systematically supporting incarcerated associates and their families. The twins maintained a private welfare system for 'aways' by writing letters, sending grocery boxes at Christmas, greeting them at prison gates upon release, and paying weekly allowances to the wives of non-smoking inmates in exchange for their prison tobacco rations. Ronnie traded spare tobacco from married inmates with families in London, ensuring Reggie paid their wives a regular weekly pound note outside.

You can maintain criminal solidarity through practical steps:

• supply spare tobacco from prison rations to inmates with families;
• arrange for the inmate's wife outside to receive a regular weekly pound note;
• send a box of groceries to the family at Christmas time;
• meet the inmate outside the prison gates upon release with a pound or two and a lift home.

Reggie Kray achieved legitimate commercial and social success by operating upscale East End drinking clubs tailored to the emerging affluent class and celebrities. Operating independently while Ronnie was imprisoned, Reggie established clubs like The Double R and the Wellington Way Club, enforcing strict rules against hooligans while mixing local villains with visiting journalists, playboys, and stars. Reggie opened The Double R on the Bow Road, which attracted celebrities like Jackie Collins, Sybil Burton, and Barbara Windsor, and generated high profits from illegal gambling and bookmaking. By the fifteenth month in Ronnie's sentence, Reggie's club operations were running smoothly, and the Wellington Way Club brought in a minimum of £50 a night in house money from blackjack, rummy, and faro.

Prolonged isolation and institutional confinement triggered a severe mental breakdown in Ronnie Kray, leading to violent outbursts and formal certification as insane. Transferred to Camp Hill prison on the Isle of Wight, Ronnie became entirely isolated from his support network, developed severe persecutory delusions about informers and plots against him, and ultimately assaulted inmates and staff before being diagnosed with prison psychosis. After receiving news of Aunt Rose's death from leukemia on Christmas Day, Ronnie became completely incoherent in the psychiatric wing of Winchester Gaol and was placed in a straitjacket. Ronnie's prison sentence started from November 1956 for three years, and the family kept Aunt Rose's leukemia diagnosis hidden from Ronnie for two years.

5. Esmeralda's Barn and West End Expansion

The acquisition of Esmeralda's Barn and an alliance with intellectual adviser Leslie Payne propelled the twins into lucrative West End gambling and long-firm frauds.

Leslie Payne served as the crucial intellectual force and fixer behind the Kray twins. He brought corporate respectability that the twins lacked.

On an autumn evening in 1960, Stefan de Faye met Leslie Payne and the Kray twins behind the Royal Albert Hall, where he reluctantly agreed to sign over his control for one thousand pounds paid down to Stefan de Faye for the control of Hotel Organisation Ltd.

Esmeralda's Barn

The club generated massive cash flow through structured shoe money fees charged directly to players at the tables. The club's shoe money fees were three pounds per shoe between eleven and three, rising to six pounds until six in the morning, and ten pounds thereafter, yielding over ten thousand pounds a week. These revenues assured an income of forty thousand pounds each a year for the twins.

Ronnie systematically undermined the venue by recklessly granting credit to high-risk players. When bad cheques piled up in the cashier's office over six months, the manager offered the twins one thousand pounds a week just to stay away. Ronnie brought a chimpanzee in evening dress into Esmeralda's Barn, seated it at the tables, and had its winnings paid out.

Reggie fell deeply in love with sixteen-year-old Frances Shea while imprisoned in Wandsworth. Reggie wrote daily poetry to Frances Shea from prison, dreaming of carrying her off to a deserted bay by a blue sea to build a house far away from the dark life with Ronnie.

Organized Crime Operations

You can understand long-firm frauds through front companies such as the 625 Centre and Dominion Refrigeration, which cleared over one hundred thousand pounds in the year 1962.

• Register the new company under a fictitious name.
• Rent a warehouse and an office and have stationery printed.
• Begin writing to suppliers of wholesale goods and visit a local bank to deposit substantial working capital.
• Pay suppliers on the dot and sell goods cut-rate to establish instant credit.
• Place maximum orders with all suppliers, sell everything off cut-rate for cash in one grand slam, and disappear.

Labour MP Tom Driberg helped the twins by making inquiries that successfully transferred a local man from Dartmoor to a London prison on health grounds. On 12 July 1964, the Sunday Mirror published an expose headline linking a prominent peer to a London underworld thug. Lord Boothby wrote a denial letter to The Times, leading the International Publishing Corporation to pay forty thousand pounds - compensation paid to Lord Boothby in settlement plus legal costs, and forcing the firing of the newspaper editor.

6. Murder and the Fall of the Firm

Unchecked paranoia, the tragic suicide of Frances Kray, and the brutal murders of George Cornell and Jack McVitie sealed the doom of the criminal enterprise.

Gang Wars and the Murder of Cornell

Ronnie Kray suffered from severe paranoia, depression, and hallucinations while hiding from the police in a Finchley flat and later a room off King's Road. Reggie woke in the early morning by Reggie's bed with a gun, stating he would have to shoot him, and once slashed his wrists before being saved by groans heard in the next room.

Prompted by longstanding grievances, territorial disputes, and Cornell calling him a "fat poof", Ronnie walked into The Blind Beggar with Ian Barrie and shot Cornell in the head in front of witnesses who refused to talk to the police. On 8 March 1966, shortly after Richard Hart was killed at the "Battle of Mr Smith's Club", Ronnie entered The Blind Beggar, had Barrie fire warning shots into the ceiling, and fatally shot Cornell at 8.30 p.m. using a 9-mm Mauser automatic.

The twins engineered the escape of dangerous prisoner Frank Mitchell primarily as a public relations stunt to bolster their underworld reputation. On 12 December 1966, members of the Firm picked Mitchell up from the Princetown road using a green Vauxhall after he walked away from a Dartmoor working party wearing a black nylon mask. Mitchell was 32 years old and had spent 18 years of his life in detention, including 4 years in Dartmoor. While hiding in a Barking flat for 10 days, Mitchell grew increasingly unstable. To prevent him from exposing them, the Krays arranged for Frederick Foreman and associates to eliminate him during his transfer. Albert Donaghue testified at the Old Bailey that on Christmas Eve 1966, Mitchell was driven away in a Thames van and shot multiple times by Foreman before his body was disposed of.

The Murder of Jack McVitie

Frances Kray, suffering from severe depression and distress from her marriage to Reggie, committed suicide by overdose. On 6 June 1967 Reggie and Frances went to book tickets for a holiday in Ibiza. The following day, 7 June 1967, she was found dead at age 23 after taking a massive overdose of phenobarbitone. Reggie spent two hundred pounds on her plot in Chingford Cemetery.

The death of Frances triggered a total emotional breakdown in Reggie, turning his grief into consuming bitterness and displaced hatred. Reggie finished his third bottle of Gordon's gin by 6 A.M. while nursing his hatred against the Sheas. He woke a sleeping member of the Firm, got a revolver from a Stoke Newington pub, and shot Frederick in the leg at his home for allegedly talking behind Frances's back.

Jack the Hat McVitie was brutally murdered by Ronnie and Reggie Kray at a party after failing to assassinate Leslie Payne and threatening the twins. Ronnie had given McVitie one hundred pounds as a payment on account to kill Leslie Payne, with four hundred pounds remaining upon Payne's death, and Reggie had lent McVitie fifty pounds during a meeting at The Regency. Convinced that McVitie was a dangerous witness and angry over his drunken threats, Ronnie lured him to a basement flat in Cazenove Road using the Lambrianou brothers. Jack McVitie was stabbed in the stomach and chest and impaled through the throat onto the floor at Blonde Carol's flat in Cazenove Road.

Following McVitie's murder, the twins orchestrated an extensive cover-up involving ritual cleansing and disposal of the body. The twins visited Harry Hopwood's house in Hackney where they bathed thoroughly, burned their clothes and money, and scrubbed their jewelry while Hopwood disposed of the murder weapons. Blonde Carol returned to her flat at 2 A.M. to find Bender cleaning up blood, leading one year later to when the twins were found guilty of murder despite no trace of McVitie's remains.

7. Retribution and Legacy

Detective Superintendent Nipper Read's systematic investigation and the collapse of the underworld omertà ended the Kray empire with life sentences at the Old Bailey.

Police Investigation

Nipper Read revolutionized police investigations by treating them as systematic organizational campaigns rather than relying solely on traditional detective intuition. He was 43 years old when he was promoted detective superintendent in 1967 with 22 years of experience as a policeman.

Scotland Yard established an undercover operation run from Tintagel House across the river to ensure total secrecy from the Kray twins and potential police informants. John du Rose set up Tintagel House to look like a nondescript government office, put out false rumors of a police corruption inquiry, and created a fake murder case in Dublin under Read's name on the board with 14 detectives initially working in the team, later expanding to 20. Read wrote down 30 names in his delightful index and eventually secured a massive statement from criminal Leslie Payne detailing years of fraud and violence. Payne's cooperation followed 3 weeks of intensive interrogation producing 200 pages of statement detail. When you need to extract testimony from uncooperative criminals, you can follow these steps:

• Meet daily at a quiet location to prevent leaks
• Review previous testimony every morning to ensure accuracy
• Check places, names, dates, and bank account numbers against statements
• Have the witness sign and date each reviewed section

On May 8, 1968, police raided 24 separate addresses across London at 6:00 A.M., allowing Nipper Read to personally handcuff Ronnie and Reggie Kray at Braithwaite House. The operation involved 60 police officers brought in for the operation and 26 total names on the arrest list. To execute synchronized raids successfully, you can follow these steps:

• Assemble all raiding personnel in a secure, isolated location
• Prohibit private telephone calls and outside communication
• Distribute index cards with suspect photographs, addresses, and particulars
• Monitor suspects under constant observation until they return home
• Execute synchronized raids across all addresses simultaneously at dawn

Trial and Legacy

The Kray trial collapsed their legendary immunity when dozens of former accomplices and victims turned against them to save themselves. Twenty-eight criminals were ultimately allowed to save themselves by giving state evidence, permanently destroying the myth of East End solidarity.

The 1969 Old Bailey trial became the longest and most expensive criminal prosecution in British history, ending in life sentences for the twins. Presided over by Justice Melford Stevenson with prosecutor Kenneth Jones, the trial methodically established the murders of George Cornell and Jack McVitie. The judge specified 30 years as the minimum prison recommendation when the twins were 34 years of age. The true significance of the Krays lies not in their murders, but in how easily they built a sophisticated criminal empire that corrupted British society.

Conclusion

You see how unchecked violence, social complicity, and systemic protection create empires that ultimately collapse from internal paranoia and public outrage. The Kray phenomenon demonstrates that raw power without institutional restraint invites total destruction. You can draw several practical rules from their rise and fall to navigate dangerous environments and organizational threats:

1. Never rely on fear alone to maintain loyalty, because terror creates informants who will betray you when pressure mounts.
2. Recognize that political and social influence has strict limits once public safety demands a decisive state response.
3. Keep your inner circle free from unchecked psychopaths whose impulsive actions will destroy your strategic interests.
4. Understand that absolute secrecy fails when victims and accomplices face severe legal consequences for silence.
5. Build legitimate foundations rather than relying solely on extortion and intimidation, which guarantee a violent end.

10 Key Ideas

1. Identical twins Ronald and Reginald Kray inherited strong biological predispositions to crime from their harsh East End background, where survival depended on strict codes of silence and a powerful matriarchy.
2. Military conscription served as an invaluable training ground where the twins formed criminal networks, mastered institutional manipulation, and fully embraced a non-caring philosophy of life.
3. The twins established their early underworld dominance by taking over a Bethnal Green billiard hall and running systematic protection rackets backed by uncompromising street brutality.
4. By challenging established bosses like Jack Spot and Billy Hill, the Kray organization successfully expanded its influence while systematically supporting incarcerated associates and their families.
5. The acquisition of Esmeralda's Barn and an alliance with intellectual adviser Leslie Payne propelled the twins into lucrative West End gambling and massive long-firm frauds.
6. Ronnie Kray's severe paranoia and unchecked violence culminated in the brazen public murder of George Cornell at The Blind Beggar pub.
7. Following the tragic suicide of Frances Kray, Reggie's consuming bitterness and the brutal murder of Jack McVitie sealed the doom of the criminal enterprise.
8. Detective Superintendent Nipper Read revolutionized police investigations through a systematic undercover operation at Tintagel House that ultimately extracted crucial confessions.
9. The unprecedented collapse of the underworld omertà occurred as dozens of former accomplices turned against the twins to save themselves.
10. The 1969 Old Bailey trial ended in life sentences for the Kray twins, permanently proving that criminal empires built on absolute violence and political corruption inevitably collapse from internal paranoia and public outrage.