I’ve read “Love As Always, Mum” by Mae West so was looking forward to reading this to delve more into the mind of the abhorrent Rose West.

This really focussed on Rose and Fred’s home life when they were children and how this could have come to shape who they eventually became.

It’s a heartbreaking read as you can imagine and I did like the focus on the victims giving more details about them, not what happened to them, but their life before and what hardships they faced.

For any true crime fan I would definitely recommend this for more insight into the twisted mind of Rose West.

Wow! This book is crazy, it had me shocked by what I was reading! This is a heart wrenching story, poor children! Such a thrilling book!

Thank you to NetGalley and Gemini for the free eARC of this book.

I don’t even know where to start with this one. As an American, I had never heard of Rose and Fred West, and I almost wish I still hadn’t heard of them! There’s no happy ending or redemption in this story. Just a trail of trauma and death. The things that these two did were so deprived and disgusting that it’s hard to believe that it’s even real.

Rose met Fred when she was 15 and he was 27. He was already known as being a creep, and she had an extremely abusive childhood. Together they were just a powder keg of depravity.

This was a very good true crime read! Highly recommended, but this is some extremely disturbing content in it.

This book breaks your heart a few times from start to finish because trauma is on every page - feels like it’s every sentence sometimes. The crimes were abhorrent; the loss, monumental. The authors pay homage to the victims without glamorizing the serial killers whose depravity led to their demises. It’s not a book I’d ever read again because of the darkness of the content, but I’d definitely recommend it to someone interested in this genre. Gratitude to NetGalley for the ARC!

Inside the Mind of Rose West offers a chilling and thought-provoking exploration of one of Britain’s most infamous serial killers. The book delves deeply into Rose West’s psyche, uncovering her complex and disturbing personality. The writing is gripping, supported by extensive research and psychological analysis. While unsettling, it provides a compelling insight into the factors that may have shaped her actions. A must-read for true crime enthusiasts, but not for the faint of heart.

I think it’s crazy that they got away with what they did for so long and that if they would have gotten counseling as children or young adults all of this would have been avoided. Very sad but informative.

I’m not usually one for non-fiction, but serial killers are my guilty pleasure. As someone who thought they were well versed in the crimes of Fred and Rose West, this book was a harrowing, eye-opening experience to the details that have been brushed over in the past.

“Sadly, this is not a story of redemption. No heroes arrive at the darkest hour to save the day and right all of the wrongs of the past. There is no moral arc that bends towards justice, and certainly no apologies.”

This chronological retelling of the upbringing and crimes committed by two of the most infamous British serial killers provides an insight into the perspective of their children, victims and survivors from the start of Fred and Rose’s tumultuous relationship, all the way through to their incarceration.

It’s a page-turner, in the darkest of ways. Using multiple sources to give an up-to-date explanation of their crimes and illustrates Rose’s part in the murders. Having read numerous books on the couple, this was by far, the clearest representation of their story. Starting from the beginning, it provides an account of the experiences of both Fred and Rose, as well as each of their children and the other victims that unfortunately crossed their paths.

If you’re looking for a gut-wrenching read about the horrific crimes of Fred and Rose West, this is the book.

Thank you NetGalley and Gemini Books for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

Rose was only 15 years old when she met 27 year old Fred West at a local bus station. Rose knew what kind of monster Fred was, but married him anyway because she was also an evil villain. Together they would pick up women, bring them home to abuse them both physically and sexually, then get rid of their bodies. The minds of both Fred and Rosemary were f*cked up which made this book hard to read at times.

Chapter seven and all the chapters that followed were incredibly hard to read. Not only were they sexually abusing the young women they had brought home, but their own young children as well. The chapters describing the forced abuse and the family members that were involved was so heartbreaking. I needed frequent breaks because I was sobbing uncontrollably for these poor children that couldn’t escape the vise of their own parents.

I know it was the 70’s, but why couldn’t police officers connect the dots when so many women went missing for decades and they were ALL last seen around 25 Cromwell Street. Rose and Fred killed 12 women in a reign of terror and nobody investigated their disappearances until 27 years later.

Fred West took the cowards way out of prison time, but Rose is still sitting in prison and rotting for all her disgusting crimes. She’s one of the most calculated and chilling female serial killers in the UK.

I did my own little bit of research and the home on 25 Cromwell Street, where all the horror had taken place has been demolished, but you can still see old photos of what the home used to look like and the monsters that lived there.

Inside the Mind of Rose West by Jeremy Daniel provides an unflinching and chilling exploration of one of Britain’s most notorious criminals. Rose West, a mother and wife living in semi-rural Gloucester, concealed an unimaginable darkness behind closed doors. Alongside her husband Fred, Rose was responsible for the brutal torture, sexual violence, and murder of at least a dozen women and girls, including her daughter and stepdaughter. Their home at 25 Cromwell Street became a house of horrors, where the Wests preyed on vulnerable women and girls, transforming what should have been a family home into a hellish nightmare.

This account goes beyond just the horrific murders; it examines Rose's complex and sadistic role as both a mother and killer. Her disturbing involvement in sex work carried out with Fred’s knowledge and participation, paints a horrifying picture of the couple's depraved existence. The couple's manipulation of their home to bring in lodgers, along with their predatory behaviour toward young women, reveals the depths of their twisted actions. The chilling details of Caroline Owens' escape, where she was drugged and assaulted but unable to testify, provide a glimpse into how close the Wests came to being brought to justice much earlier.

The true extent of their crimes wasn’t fully realized until two decades later when the bodies of nine victims were unearthed from the garden and cellar of the Wests’ home. The narrative chronicles the devastating impact of the West's actions on the victims, their families, and even their children. The aftermath of these crimes rippled through their lives, leaving a trail of destruction that continues to haunt those involved.

What sets this book apart is its careful balance of presenting the facts with compassion for the victims while maintaining the brutal honesty required to understand the horror of the West’s actions. The timeline structure helps readers track the escalation of violence, from the early days of the West’s relationship to their final, shocking crimes. The exploration of Fred and Rose’s troubled childhoods adds another layer of complexity to their dark partnership, helping to explain—though never justify—the roots of their monstrous behaviours.

Thoroughly researched and comprehensive, Inside the Mind of Rose West provides a chilling look at a couple whose evil actions seemed inevitable, given their backgrounds and the dark dynamics of their relationship. The book is a sobering reminder of the devastating impact such horrors have not only on the victims but on their families and communities. It’s a difficult but essential read for those seeking to understand the full scope of the West's crimes and the lasting trauma they caused.

Read more at The Secret Book Review.

Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free, electronic ARC of this novel received in exchange for an honest review.
Expected publication date: Feb. 18, 2025
Rose West, and her husband, Fred, assaulted, abused and killed young women over a twenty-year period. For two decades, their crimes went undetected. Both Rose and Fred held jobs and maintained the perfect family façade, even though their own children were victims to their parents’ harsh abuse and mistreatment. Even in 1972, when a young woman managed to escape, the West’s managed to evade capture. It wasn’t until twenty years later that their criminal plot was uncovered, finally giving the victims’ families some solace as more and more bodies were discovered.
“Inside the Mind of Rose West: Wife, Mother, Monster” by Jeremy Daniel and Tanya Farber is the ultimate true crime novel. “Rose” focuses on both Rose and Fred as children, then delves into their dysfunctional and co-dependent relationship that leads to their evil and sadistic crimes and finally concludes with their apprehension. The legal battle is discussed, but only vaguely, sticking to the important details necessary, which made the story easy to read. The authors also identify all the victims by full name and ensure readers know them as human beings first, and West victims last.
I loved the information provided on the upbringing of both Rose and Fred. As children, it was obvious that they did not stand a chance to live a routine, normal life, subjected to the horrors that they eventually made their own children suffer through. When they found each other and began to commit the gruesome crimes, they were a match made in Hell, with both parties finding justification and excitement from being participants in the grisly acts.
The most horrifying aspect of these crimes was how long the West’s got away with it. The police force failed on many levels, even taking into account the technology deficiencies of that time. In fact, some of the members of the force were bought off by Fred, or receiving favours in other ways from Rose or some of the West’s acquaintances. I should not have been surprised at the complete incompetence of the police force, the educators and the social services system, but I was absolutely abhorred all the same.
I was not familiar with the West’s evil crimes, so this was an entirely new true crime story. “Inside the Mind” had some Paul Bernardo/Karla Homolka vibes, although the West’s were responsible for the deaths of more women than the Canadian duo. This is an absolute true crime must read.

I’ve read previous books about the Wests but I don’t think you’re ever properly prepared for what you might read about them. This book is open, honest and brutally stark about what they did in a factual, yet gently sympathetic to the victims style. The information is presented in a chronological timeline style which is useful in seeing the escalating violence and the backdrops of Fred and Rosemary’s own childhoods. It’s really chilling reading about how they were both disasters waiting to happen and how the result of them meeting one another was a complete melting pot of evil.
I felt this was a very comprehensive account and it came across as thoroughly researched and inclusive of their children and the shock waves of the aftermath that rippled into their subsequent lives. My only minor criticism is that some pictures would’ve been useful for context and as a connection to the victims. Very immersive thought provoking read, thank you.

I have read a lot of true crime and also most of the books that have been published about the Wests' including the accounts by Mae their daughter. The book was well written and well researched. Not too much time was spent talking about the actual crimes, more time spent on the timeline of the victims and how they met the West's which is good as in other publications this has been the focus and is disrespectful to the victims. There was little information offered that I did not already know, however the book did include some information about Rose west after her incarceration which was new material. The authors offered a balanced account without offering personal opinions or showing any sympathy or vilification of Rose West which is good and makes for a better read. I would certainly recommend this to anyone interested in the background of Rose west and her crimes, even if they had read other publications.

Omg. What the hell is wrong with this woman. I don't get how anyone can be so evil. The books is such a deep dive into the chaos. Perfectly written.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in the case, the chronology of the book made it very easy to read and know the timeline of what happened. I did find this hard to read finding myself having to take many breaks to digest what I had read about the crimes committed. You could almost picture exactly what was endured during some of the descriptions, especially to the West children. This book really made you think about the failings of various agencies and how if more questions had been asked, so much tragedy could have been prevented perhaps. However, at the same time, it did really well to contextualise 1970s England, and how we can retrospectively be too critical on these agencies as they didn't have access to the technology that we do now, which can prevent us ever seeing something like this happening again.

I was shocked by the content in this book even though i thought i had heard enough about rose and fred west at the time and trials of their crimes , a heart wrenching story .Their poor children my heart breaks for them .

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7072774095

https://x.com/GeBidwell/status/1869846270078267740

Fred and Rose patio specialists. Motorfred, Ace with Spades. Westlife. These phrases and the infamous wedding photo of Fredrick and Rosemary West adorn cheap mugs, t-shirts, pillows and other, unusable, paraphernalia sold primarily through Facebook pages for stag-do’s and novelty gifts. In fact, a cottage industry borne largely from poor puns and human atrocity exists and is populated by the least amusing people you can create in your head. Good work if you can stomach it.

Even now, thirty years on from their arrest, and over fifty years since Fred began to murder, The Wests remain a touchstone reference in the British imagination, appearing in popular culture in comedy as adored as Alan Partridge and as milque-toast as Gavin and Stacy. Now, burying somebody under the patio is a trope, a cliché, a comic reference and while documentaries, podcasts, and museums commemorate the horrors of Cromwell Street and the victims beneath the slabs, even they fail, mostly, to recognise the true darkness of these crimes. The Wests are among the most genuinely depraved individuals these isles have birthed: serial killers who specialised in paedophilia, sexual assault, dismemberment, and decades-long psychological abuses.

It is a shame, then, that this most recent recounting of events, written by Tanya Farber and Jeremy Daniels as part of the ‘In the Mind of’ series of true crime books for Gemini Adult Books, is little more than a souped-up Wikipedia page infested with cliché and seemingly devoid of curiosity or insight. “For a family with sordid secrets behind closed doors, but that looked ordinary to everyone else,” they write as so many people have written before, ignoring almost all psychological analysis, and leaving the finer dynamics of this psychotic love affair all but untouched.

In fact, for a book that bears her name alone and that promises to step into the psychology of this most maligned murderer, Rose plays second fiddle to Fred in terms of focus. The text is the story of Fred and Rose West, retold in simple prose and broad generalisations, a far cry from the psychoanalytical re-examination suggested by the title and marketing.

Admittedly, as a brief introduction to these crimes, the book is well-researched, aided no doubt by Farber’s extensive journalistic work, and not entirely without ambition. Farber and Daniels, in the intro to the text, posit their intention to do justice to the victims of this pair, most of whom were vulnerable teenage girls overlooked by the system in life and in death. In all fairness, the book does indeed spend a fair amount of time on each victim, but does so by compiling their stories into a single chapter and turning these individual tragedies into little more than an inventory.

Most unfortunately for Farber and Daniels is the fact that Happy Like Murderers exists. This text, written and researched by Gordon Burns, is potentially the most visceral and upsetting true crime book ever published. It tells the story of The Wests in such grisly, unrepentant detail that it renders most other writing on the subject null and void. Anne-Marie, a West daughter, also penned a biography recounting the events, and the Fred and Rose West Tapes podcast on Spotify does a pretty sufficient job of briefing an audience on the case using a fresh and chronologically distant perspective. Farber and Daniels themselves reference this podcast repeatedly.

Realistically, if this is your first encounter with The Wests and their lives of violence, it will serve just fine as a primer, however there are numerous other sources far more compelling than this.

Thanks to Gemini Books and Netgalley for the ARC.

This book was dark and horrible but really interesting. I knew the names and that they were true evil but these crimes took place before I was born and the court case was when I was only 1 so I didn’t know too much details about it. The victims stories deserve to be told and I hope rose west is living the most horrible life.
Thank you NetGalley for letting me read and review.

I received a free copy of, Inside the Mind of Rose West, by Jeremy Daniel; Tanya Farber, from the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This is one of the sickest minds out there. Rose West and her husband are pure evil, even killing heir own children/step child. Her husband took the cowards way out, but Rose West, now Jennifer Jones, has been living in prison, thankfully, paying for her many crimes. This was a hard read, a lot of abuse, and crimes.

Holy COW what a book.

This just goes to show what kind of people live in this world. There are so many trigger warnings that people need to tread carefully with this one.

I love true crime so i loved this book. Thought it was well written and just really interesting to find out how this woman thought and what she was like.

I will recommend with trigger warnings!

Thanks NetGalley for letting me read and review.

This book was meticulously researched and well written but I don't think it managed to get 'inside the mind' of West. The dots should have been joined up long before the couple were remanded in custody, there were so many clues about the horrific abuse of their own children that schools and social work should have picked up on and investigated. I felt so sad for these poor children. The crimes the couple committed were almost beyond belief, they were absolute maniacs hiding behind the facade of mundanity. I don't think we find out anything new from this book, but it did bring together all the facts about the cases. I don't think anyone could ever get inside the mind of this couple.