I never heard of this case or saw this book ever. My boyfriend just randomly bought it for me for my 21st birthday and I though oh its another biography! But I was definitely wrong! This brought tears to my eyes from the first page. I could feel Mary's suffering. It is a truly sad story, from her childhood throughout her life in prison and after prison! It shows how truly the system was failed and never looked through the life of the child to see why Mary did what she did. I would like to say that the author did a tremendous job in her research for this book, to truly show the failing system in those days and why children kill at such a young age. I can say that I finished reading this book thinking that Mary Bell was put to be seen as a monster when she truly was not. She was just a child, trying to rebel from her suffering childhood she had! I hope that finally Mary Bell, thanks to Gitta Sereny, can now be seen as a person who suffered and did not know better than to kill those 2 innocent children. She is truly not a monster but a child who suffered and made her suffer even more by sending her to prison instead of finding out what truly made her that way! Thank you Gitta Sereny :)