In Control: Dangerous Relationships and How They End in Murder by Jane Monckton Smith

Some books change how you think about a subject. This one changes how you see risk. Jane Monckton Smith, a former police officer turned forensic criminologist, has written what might be the most practically useful book on coercive control and intimate partner homicide available to frontline staff.

The core of the book is her eight stage timeline, developed from studying hundreds of intimate partner homicides. It maps how these killings progress, from a perpetrator's history of control, through the relationship developing at speed, into control being established, then triggered, escalated, and in the worst cases, ending in a decision to kill and the homicide itself. What makes this so valuable is that it dismantles the idea of the "crime of passion" once and for all. These are not sudden losses of control. They are predictable, patterned, and in many cases preventable.

What works so well is how Monckton Smith writes. She carries serious academic weight, but the book never reads like a textbook. She uses real cases throughout, told with care and respect for victims and their families, and each one illustrates a stage of the timeline in a way you will not forget. Her explanation of why separation is the most dangerous period, and why "why doesn't she just leave" is precisely the wrong question, should be required reading for anyone who works with victims or perpetrators.

For those of us with a probation background, this book lands hard. Most practitioners will read the eight stages and immediately think of cases they have supervised. The stalking chapter alone is worth the cover price, particularly her point that stalking after separation is not a sign of heartbreak but a continuation of control, and one of the strongest homicide risk markers we have.

One thing worth flagging is that the book sits firmly within a traditional framing of domestic abuse, with a male perpetrator and female victim at the centre of the model. That framing reflects the homicide data she draws on, and it is entirely legitimate for the question she is asking. But anyone working in this field knows that the picture on the ground is often messier. Bi-directional abuse, where both partners use aggression or controlling behaviour, is far more common than public discussion tends to acknowledge, and there is a growing body of research exploring it. Practitioners will regularly meet cases that do not fit the clean perpetrator and victim structure the timeline assumes, and the book offers little help in navigating those. It is not a flaw in what Monckton Smith has done so much as a reminder that the timeline is one lens, not the whole picture, and it needs to sit alongside a broader understanding of how abuse actually presents in caseloads.

Even so, the reason this book matters for criminal justice professionals is simple. Domestic homicide reviews repeat the same finding again and again: the warning signs were there, but nobody joined them up. Monckton Smith gives us the framework to join them up. Whether you are writing a risk assessment, managing a domestic abuse perpetrator in the community, or sitting in a MAPPA meeting, the timeline gives you a shared language for escalation that is grounded in evidence rather than gut feeling.

Who should read it? Probation practitioners, police officers, social workers, IDVAs, students heading into criminal justice, and anyone who has ever supported a friend through a controlling relationship. It is accessible enough for the general reader and rigorous enough for the professional.

This is one of those rare books that genuinely equips you to do the job better. Read it, then pass it on to a colleague.

Buy from amazon here