Reg Kray A Man Apart by Roberta Kray (Pan, £6.99)

TOGETHER with his twin brother Ronnie, Reggie Kray was one of the country's most notorious villains.

Banged away for life in 1969 - part of his incarceration was at Long Lartin, near Evesham - he met Roberta in March, 1996.

She had been asked to do publicity for a video and after discovering that the work was on behalf of Reg, she was invited to meet him.

For a year, he pursued her with letters and telephone calls and in 1997, they were married in Maidstone jail.

Roberta had discovered another side to the man, who to the public was "the epitome not only of violence and menace but also of a perverse glamour".

They had only three brief years of marriage and there were just a few months when her husband wasn't behind bars, but by then he was terminally ill.

Here is her portrait of Reg Kray; not an angel but no devil either.

It is a love story of opposites, for in him she saw goodness beyond human failings and that is all any of us can ask of this life.

David Chapman