Serial Killers Books

Okay, I have read better books but I believe the author's role in the Karla Homolka and Paul Bernardo's dispicable crimes in the murders of three innocent young ladies including Karla's sister is worth reading in the first place if you followed the crimes. Now, Karla is a free woman. Paul will be eligible for parole in 2020 according to the book. I understand profiling is not an exact science. The author writes about the miss in the Hindu Mass HOmicide case where nine innocent monks including a nun were killed execution style for literally peanuts of their wealth. They would have probably given them everything they asked for if they were given the opportunity. The author does lose me with the David Koresh and the Waco situation. I don't believe he firmly explained how dangerous Koresh was specifically. As a reader, we know he followed in the footsteps of another monster, Jim Jones, but the author never clarifies the process of Koresh's madness from leader to dictator in his small congregation. The book is really for crime enthusiasts like myself who enjoys reading about crime and what makes people tick. He is accurate in his depiction of Paul and Karla's crimes against young virginal women including Karla's sister, Tammy Lynn. She was a Christmas Present for Paul from his beloved fiance, Karla. Their relationship was twisted and Karla knew of Paul's crime spree as the Scarborough Rapist but supported it as a game. It still angers me that Karla was released and that Paul may have a chance at parole. Write the Canadian parole boards to stop this from happening. As for Karla, she's the most hated woman in Canada. He also writes in detail about Arthur Shawcross's crimes as a serial killer. There is the European serial killer, Jack Untweger, but he doesn't go into detail about his crimes. He is not as clear as he is about Shawcross' crimes.

I have a fairly large section in my home library on true crime, which has always interested me. I enjoy the writings of John Douglas and Roy Hazelwood, and so, since this book's cover talked about McCrary's working relationship with Douglas, I picked it up at the library.

The writing is fine, but the problem I found is this: McCrary makes it sound as though he is called in or sent to a crime scene, where he expertly profiles the perpetrator. The problem is that he presents a profile, and then is suddenly called to another case, and then something along the lines of "two or three months later, someone else solved the case." In other words, it doesn't sound as though he ever solves anything, or sticks around a crime scene to see if his guesses pan out.

Perhaps it's wishful thinking, but I'd really have liked to see McCrary head up an investigation and work it through to the end. Seems to me that both Douglas and Hazelwood did that, and, knowing that, Douglas is prominently mentioned on the book's cover to get people to buy the book. I'm glad I picked it up at the library; while reasonably interesting, it's not going to end up at my library at home.

I could not put this book down and have recommended it to so many people! You start to appreciate the work of a profiler and how important it is in an investigation. Gregg McCrary did such an awesome job in keeping you on the edge of your seat.

I've read just about everything by John Douglas and other books on profiling, and am a bit of a Court TV junkie. This book provides new information and insights into criminal profiling and certain cases than previously available, and for that reason, I'd recommend it for a true crime fan. It provides new information on the Paul Bernardo / Karla Homolka husband and wife serial rape "team", the Buddhist Temple Massacre near Phoenix, and the Waco tragedy. The fact that McCary presents fairly convincing evidence that Karla Homolka was hardly the "battered wife" she's usually presented to be in this highly documented case was the most startling to me.

The problem is the writing is tedious to read at several points, and the chapter on the Waco stand-off seems to go on forever. The book could have used some more work by the editor, as some paragraphs don't really fit together and some of the narrative goes along in a herky jerky fashion. For this reason, I would not recommend this book for someone with just a passing interest in the subject.

You can learn more in a one hour Discovery Channel special than you will in this book. The writing style is simplistic and tediously "Dragnet cute" which doesn't help. What the book needs is a real writer and someone to help organize the material better. Oh, yes, and an editor to cut out the many self-congratulatory asides that further weaken the project.

Kenneth McDuff is probably the only murderer to be sentenced to death twice...in two decades! It cost at least four women their lives when McDuff was paroled in 1989.

Learn the harrowing tale of how a serial killer was released after his death sentence was commuted and later he was paroled.
He wasn't charged with his first known rape and murder of a teen girl due to sloppy prosecution and faulty paperwork.

He routinely violated his parole and probation conditions,sometimes within mere minutes after appearing in court! Mr. Lavergne aptly states that McDuff had "no moral compass." He wasn't an intelligent individual,he was aided by luck and mysterious assistance in leaving Texas after his murders. His neurotic mother regularly enabled him with financial support throughout his life.

There a few mysteries left unexplained, the chief being the identity of the CI that coaxed McDuff into helping to locate the burial sites of his victims while on death row.

Gary Lavergne has done his research and written in detail the chilling actions of a serial killer that got to continue killing long after he should have been executed.

Being a true crime buff and former resident of Texas, I was really excited to read this book... When I finally recieved it and began to read it, I was truly disappointed. It is very poorly written and hard to follow. I normally read a book in 1 to 2 days and it has taken me 5 days to read this one. I do not recommend wasting time or money on this particular book.

I really don't understand the positive reviews of this book. It is poorly-written and amateurish, and the story-telling is not at all compelling. I would read 20-page blocks of this book and then forget about it for a month. The description of people and events is extremely thin, and it's obvious that little research was put into it. That might be forgivable if, as I said, the writing wasn't of such low quality. Compare this to a classic true-crime book like The Executioner's Song, and it's like a clinic for whoever wrote this book.

Disturbing. I'd watched a documentary about the "broomstick killer" and was curious about what made him tick. The book reveals what was behind the creep's actions. And that was really nothing, just a vicious, vacant man devoid of any pity or feelings. Written in a factual, chilling manner. Me thinks I learned a bit too much about this mad man.

This book reviews the history of Kenneth Allen McDuff... the only serial killer in Texas history, perhaps the entire world, to be sentenced to death, paroled, and then sentenced to death a second time. There can be no doubt that this book is impeccably researched and well written. The author certainly did his homework. While the story itself is inherently interesting, I do have some reservations about recommending this to the masses of True Crime fans.

1. After being paroled from Death Row, McDuff manages to associate himself with numerous nefarious characters and many law enforcement officials from various cities and agencies. Given that McDuff had no real friends and prefered to surround himself with others to whom he felt superior and whom he could manipulate, the many criminal acquaintances and law enforcement officers mentioned becomes rather confusing near the middle of the book. A glossary of persons for quick reference would have been helpful and would have lessened the confusion.

2. Given that the book covers a span of time nearing 30 years, a timeline of some sort would also have been useful to the reader. (Oddly, one of the final chapters reveals that during the trial, the prosecuting attorneys actually made a timeline for jurors. It is unfortunate that readers were not afforded the same privilege.)

3. The ending of the book is rather anticlimactic. True, the reader knows from the get go that McDuff is eventually executed. However, a final chapter about the criminal mind behind McDuff's murderous activities might have given the book a more "finished" appearance and feeling.

The final line of the book reads: "To the very end, he (McDuff) considered himself misunderstood, oppressed, and the victim." I believe this last sentence could have the been the first sentence to a final, closing chapter exploring those elements that may have contributed to McDuff's sociopathy and vicious personality. McDuff was not one to speak to authorities or mental health professionals about his upbringing and, even if he had, most of it probably would have been lacking in insight or filled with half-truths and lies. That being said, given that the author does include comments and insight from many who knew McDuff, intelligent conjecture about the criminal McDuff became would have been possible. Instead, the book simply ends in tepid disappointment.

Roxanne Doll-Iffrig is intererred at Everett Cemetery in Everett, Washington. She was brutally murdered by a family acquaintance, Richard Matthew Clark, who is the Washington State Prison for her murder. The book does supply some background information but not enough. I found myself kind of skimming for an answer to this tragedy about a beautiful young girl who had planned on being a mother herself. One night, she is kidnapped from her bedroom in the middle of the night, raped and murdered by Clark. She was missing for a week when her remains were found in the forest. She was longer the beautiful young girl who reminded me of Jessica Lunsford. The father's picture in the book reminds of a guest on the Jerry Springer Show, blue-collar and working class. I kept thinking about another murder case in Florida with Jessica Lunsford. They have a lot in common particularly their tragic endings at the hands of a killer. While America has forgotten the working class and blue collar in the arts, crime has no class or status. It can affect the beautiful, rich, as well as ugly and poor. This is the second book that I read by the author who normally does a superb job but he fails to connect Clark's background and upbrining into him becoming a child killer.

BROKEN DOLL by Burl Barer relates the heartbreaking story of Roxanne Doll, an eight-year-old Washington state girl who was kidnapped from her own bed then raped and murdered by Richard Mathew Clark, who, sadly enough, was a close friend of the family.

Reading Roxy's, as her mother Gail calls her, story is one that, especially for parents, will make you fear the things you can't control and question those you consider close friends.

Despite the intense sadness of this story, I found that the story, for the first half, was well organized and presented in a form that was interesting to read. Yet, once the trial began, I found the reading to be rather boring as most was reprinted from transcripts. I had trouble focusing and found myself skipping pages because it was information already presented to me and I had comprehended it all the first time.

The reading did become a little more interesting with the sentencing phase, but I still found myself skimming for new information.

Overall, I think this is a good book. It's not my favorite, but I wouldn't add it to my list of "Do Not Read." Just be prepared to skip over some of the repeative writing.

Burl Barer is my favorite true crime author, and each book he writes blows me away. Broken Doll again shows his ability to merge journalistic integrity with dramatic flair and human sensitivity. Well researched and compelling, this story is about the kidnap and murder of an innocent little girl by a warped and twisted "friend" of the family. More than just a rehash of the gory details,Barer takes us into the parallel lives of the killer's and victim's families - a sad story all around, but written with heart, verve and attention to detail. Any one who reads true crime will want all of Burl Barer's books.

I really liked this book, I am such a true crime fan. It's horrible what this man did to this little girl. And the sadness that the family had to endure. I am glad justice was served evntually, and forensics really came into play. The only thing, though, is that the book is very repetitive when it comes to the the actual courtroom and what was said. It seemed like the author kept rewriting what the witnesses said over and over througout the book. That is why I gave it only 4 stars, but it was still a good read..

The writing and story are disjointed and the grammar of the author is horrible. I'm not even talking about the quotes of individuals involved, but the author. I'm on page 84 and don't think I'll finish this book. It's too painful to read, and not because of the story it tells.

I rarely read thrillers or mysteries, but I have read a great deal on Ireland, much of it fictional and factual on the North. The distinction of Petit's book is that he combines real and imagined so much he blurs them convincingly in the rivalry he creates among paramilitaries, army, republicans, and their shared spies. If you've been to the North of Ireland, Petit's descriptions will bring back to memory Belfast's atmosphere.

Lots of Irish republican and loyalist characters and incidents are borrowed by Petit from history--his bibliography credits specific figures and events that the author's adapted for his novel. He's done deep research, and if you happen to be well-informed already on the 'Troubles,' such background significantly enhances the topical interest inherent in these intelligently prepared fictionalizations of many real-life skulduggeries. Much of the value in reading "The Psalm Killer" lies in matching Petit's fictional characters with their living and dead counterparts. I admire Petit's protagonist's hypothesis (pg. 353 ff.) about why the conflict in the North played itself out 1975-85 as it did. Makes intriguing reading even more when the past Northern Irish decade's diplomatic and political alignments after Petit wrote this thriller, 1995-2005, are considered according to the theory that Petit's main figure offers. Why ceasefires and Irish-British negotiations emerge makes his thriller also an counter-argument for the North's "secret history" from not only 1975-85 but closer to its present political set-ups and diplomatic tensions.

There's not all that much Ulster dialect here, far less than'd be the norm for many Irish writers who've taken on this territory. Many characters are imported from England anyway. There's fewer indigenous major figures in the story than I'd have expected for a novel set in Belfast. Granted, it is told from more of a British outsider's perspective, which may have suited the author's own qualifications better. Don't be expecting many Oirish stereotypes, either, to Petit's credit.

The novel takes a long time to read, and demanded a lot of my attention. Plots shift subtly, and the pieces take a long time to assemble. Petit, as others note, does collide into clichés of the genre--the killer's long phone conversations with the cops, the taunting and curiously capitalized letters sent, killers who talk endlessly to those they are about to execute, femme fatales, the coincidental proximity of characters just when the story demands them, the esoteric pattern of the murders that reveals the next victims, and the climactic showdown between the forces of compromised good and unrelenting evil.

The denouement let me down. Some key events for the character with which the novel ends are left summarized, and the impetus for the two characters' meeting that closes the book fails to be demonstrated. There's a lot of repressed sexuality that bubbles up dramatically as the novel progresses, but I sense that Petit does not control the energies these instincts have ignited within major characters. They begin acting like crazed teenagers in their lusts, and this regression jars with how they've been earlier explained.

The spouse of the protagonist for much of the book is off-stage for reasons that you assume will be made clear and relevant to the resolution of the novel but never are. Major causes for plot complication and character development that are emphasized consistently and that create friction between key characters remain unexplained at story's end. True, this allusive quality of much of the North comes across well, in its shadowy alliances of enemies and backstabbing and informing and double-agents. But the novel's endgame, as it plays out, dashes past much that should have been explored or else left out of the already labyrinthine plot, given the elaborate construction of the intricately aligned characters that Petit sets up as his chesspieces.

Not surprising that the reader reviews are mixed - this is an offbeat book. If you like complex mysteries like Peter Straub's Throat, check this one out. The writing is very good, strong characters, dark mood, interesting twists. And if you understand the musical clues at the end, please e-mail me and explain!

I have tried to read this book three times. All three times, I couldn't get into it. This last time, frustrated beyond all get out that I couldn't get into the book, I flipped ahead and read the ending. Wow, glad I didn't waste my time.

Basically, nothing of any importance happens for the first 99 percent of the book. I am not exaggerating. Absoulutely NOTHING that has ANYTHING TO DO with what this book promises by the description of the plot on the cover ever happens. Then everything is wrapped up seemingly right out of the blue, leaving the reader feel stupid. This isn't a thriller, nor a mystery, not a political thriller, rather a jumbled mishmash of all three that tries to be complex but ends up cheating the reader. This is an exersise in futility to read, bottom line. The writing is good (if clustered in places), the characters decent, but the plot is just...insulting. Calling this book a mere waste of paper doesn't even do justice.

One of the single worst books I have EVER even tried to read. If you liked this book, then good for you. Heck, if you could make yourself read through this five hundred page mess of a novel, you deserve an award for having the patience and tolerance of Job.

I hope that I have expressed to you, the reader, what a waste this novel is. Not at all recommended. Unless you're a masochist.

I enjoyed reading this book without being kept up by it. I was impressed with the good setting (Belfast in Ireland), which allowed the writer to use a traditionally violent and secretive town as a backdrop to his story.

The main characters were generally easy to picture, and behaved in a manner which created a good empathy with the reader. The hero's behaviour was at times a little predictable (the love interest), and at other times a little puzzling (getting bashed up in a strange situation in which he placed himself - and also his eventual demise).

Unfortunately for all its length, the book failed to resolve many of the subplots and dismissed many of the fringe characters (oh he's dead - but no real reason or explanation given). I also had trouble keeping up with the fringe characters and what organisation they were supposed to belong to - but I guess that was one of the points of the book.

There were also questions about the killer that never were resolved.

On the upside, I enjoyed the chapters where Candlestick's past was unfolding, and the book was certainly a page turner.

A good enough read, but hardly a legendary tale or groundbreaking stuff.

Forget about wasting your money on Hannibal, this is 20 times better. You actually begin to wonder if parts of this book could be true in relation to what has happened in Northern Ireland over the last 25 years. Highly recommended.

The book by MCP Chief Charles Moose,"Three Weeks in October," tells about what happened during the sniper terror that gripped the Washington Metro area. But "Sniper," tells a whole lot more about what actually happened. The exact locations of the murders and woundings, the way the victims died, the way they were shot. It takes you step by step with the crime solvers and with the snipers. Daily, you find out what really happened, where it happened and why over 250 law enforcement officials were so baffled and had a difficult time capturing the snipers. I live within minutes of many of the crime scenes and I will tell you that my entire family was terrified. It changed our lives, made us jumpy when we went outside. Pumping gas was a real horrific event too. But the book also tells of the heroes such as Chief Moose, who was just about at the end of his rope and showed his humanity with tears at the shooting of a student. Of course Captain Barney Forsythe, who spent long hours, above and beyond his duty day, trying and stave off the killers is too a hero. If you want to have a good idea of what it was like during those harrowing days in October, read this book. The fine authors, from the Washington Post, tell it just the way it happened. I hope that we never ever have to deal with the fear that was thrust upon us in Montgomery County and the areas surrounding us again. But in these times, one never knows what the day will bring. Also, remember that the police are not here to protect us. They are here to uphold the laws.


Kudos to "nine-Henry-ten."

What is the face of evil? In this sniper case, the faces are two - a 15-year-old boy and a man old enough to be his father. They are ordinary faces; yet they methodically killed and wounded as many as 5 people a day without mercy. Their movements were random, frustrating police and FBI agents. Acting on mistaken information of a white van, the officials floundered - clueless, while the pair remained invisible and deadly - shooting from a small hole in the truck of a dark blue Caprice. All around them a tempest roared.
Authors Horwitz and Ruane tell us chapter by chapter what happened, who the killers were, who the victims were, and how they ultimately were captured.

Ten times better than "Chief" Moose's self-serving 'book'.

It's really not the authors' fault, but there are so many people that worked on this case, it is confusing trying to keep everyone straight. Same with the victims. To me, this book never fully developed the characters. It's more like a rundown of what happened, but nothing of substance. This book is mainly about Malvo and Muhammed, but who are they really? At the end there is a brief conversation from Malvo that was very interesting because it gave some feedback on what he'd done, but that's it. I just felt a void, like what was really the point? By the end I was ready to be done with the book and move onto something better. I bought this from a book club and wish I hadn't.

Title: Sniper
Author: Sari Hortwitz
Publisher: Random house incorporated
Place of Publication: New York
Copyright Date: September 2003
Retail Price: $24.95.

Authors Summary: For more than three weeks, the nation watched in disbelief as Washington, D.C., and its suburbs were held hostage by gunmen shooting innocent civilians at random. Sniper is the account of those gunmen, John Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, and the massive manhunt that ended with their capture by a heavily armed SWAT team in an early-morning raid at an interstate highway rest stop.

Main Characters:
Charles Moose,
Lee Boyd Malvo, and
John Allen Muhammad

My Opinion: I really liked the book it explained in detail about each step everyone took to solve this horrifying event and how every one truly faced it and went through it. Id really recommend for every body to read this tragic book.

If you like suspense, if you like well written characters and if you love exciting twists and turns than this is the book for you. Just make sure that once you start it you've left a nice open block of time to finish it because I promise, you won't be able to put it down!

Mariah Stewart's New book Dark Truth is hot and very suspenseful, Mariah grabs ahold of you by the seat of your pants and holds you there until the stunning conclusion! I for one always recommend Mariah Stewart to anyone who love's A Good Mystery, go ahead give her a try, I dare you!!! ~ Chad James, Book Cove Online

Very average crime novel. This is my first time reading the "Truth" series. I agree with some of the reviewers who stated that the pieces of the story didn't fit. Very jarring in fact, for a first time reader like me, the sub-plot was very unnecessary. It made me so confused, so who is this Eddie Kroll and what is he doing butting into the story like that? Then, again why dwell on the murder weapon and then leave it unresolved?

Next stop was how the story unfolded in a flash back narrative that takes away the thrill of reading a crime novel, it was too passive and mystery factor was diminished. Yes, you can solve this crime before you reach the end of the book. Quite obvious.

I will skip her books as this author specialises in flash back narrative murders. Not my type of crime thriller.

Nina Madden is a book editor from New York City. Her parents were divorced and, after her mother died when she was fourteen, she lived with her college professor father, step-mom and step-brother. When she was eighteen, her father was arrested and eventually convicted of raping and murdering four of his students.

Nina lived with an aunt and tried to forget what her father did. Her father died in prison. Then Nina's step-mother dies and Nina receives a box of her father's prison belongings, including a letter her father wrote to her step-mom, maintaining his innocence and promising to never tell what the step-mom did.

The letter leads Nina to ask her true crime writer friend for help and they, along with a cop and FBI agent, dig deeper into the 16 year old murders.

This book was predictable and plodding, with an excruciating attention to Nina's movements which led to skimming. The killer was obvious (to me, anyway). The resolution was a mess, a convoluted, ridiculous mess. And whatever happened with trying to find the murder weapon? Did they ever find it? Do I care? No.

Dark Truth is the third in the Truth series and honestly it is just a mediocre read in my opinion. I read some of the other reviewers and was a little stunned by what they wrote. It started off a bit slow and like the other books, there was a lot of tedious information that did not pertain to the story at all or more reiteration of events that the reader just read about. This is the first in the series that I wouldn't classify as a stand alone book. Only because the underlying story with Regan and Mitch and her quest to find Eddie Kroll leaves the reader hanging. For those who read the two previous novels, they understand what is going on, but if one were to pick up this book without knowing anything about the connection and that Final Truth is the last book in the series, they would be very unhappy with the book. My only real problem with this series of books in comparison to other Mariah Stewart novels is that she never fully develops the characters emotions. It's more like reading the facts and not the real story.
I also have a hard time categorizing this book as a mystery thriller like another reviewer mentioned. There was very little of the whodunit aspect. Not enough red herrings to make the reader surprised at the ending. I'm sorry, some may disagree with my opinion, but I just didn't think it was the kind of story you would remember after a couple of weeks.

So, is it worth the money? Not as a single novel. As part of the series, on sale maybe. This whole series would be better to have been checked out from the library if it were available. The second in the Truth series was definitely the best and did hold it's own. Dark Truth is better if followed with Final Truth.

After reading Ross' books Blaze and liking it, I thought I would enjoy this one as well. Wrong! This book just downright sucked. There wasn't a single aspect of this book that I bought into at all. So it kinda shocked me to see all positive reviews on Amazon and BN. I don't know what book those people were reading because I didn't find anything redeemable about Impulse.

Right from the beginning I had problems. Ross sorta just plops you into the situation where all these nuances and and events that already exist. It made me feel like I'd missed a quarter of the book, like there were preceding chapters I should have read. Only there weren't, and I found the beginning irritating and somewhat confusing because of the way you are just plopped in there. There was a similar issue throughout the book. Ross skipped over a lot of scenes that, in my opinion, really needed to be written out. You'd be waiting for this scene, and then she'd skip right over it and give you a sentence or two recap. It sucked the life out of the book.

As for the rest...I thought the identity of the antagonist was obvious, and his whole "backstory" you might call it, made no sense to me. The romance between Will and Faith was lame. The ending was too curt. The overall flow of the story was choppy and stunted. I didn't care about the characters, the romance, or anything. I pretty much couldn't wait to finish the book once I started.

Basically, reading the book, I felt like Ross didn't care about the story; that she was just wanted to rush and get it over with and didn't put much effort into it. It made for bad reading. Why there were only positive reviews of this book online beats the heck out of me.

Will is back in Wyoming with his son in tow. Waiting in Wyoming is a woman from his past...maybe she's a woman for his future? Unless that future is cut short by a killer.

As always, Ross mixes a gripping plot with a sizzling romance! She never disappoints!

This was the first JoAnn Ross book that I have purchased. I thought that the book was well written and flowed well. The story had quite a few plot holes and flaws and since I am a novice Ross reader, I do not know if that is typical of her writing or if it is a one time occurance. This is definitely worth reading and I will pick up another of her books in the future.

I must be missing something the other reviewers are reading. I haven't finished the book yet, and am not sure I want to. I have many problems with the book:

1. The background story between Faith and Will was only touched on, therefore I didn't get any chemistry between them or see anything but the sex pulling them together. There needed to be more to their relationship to be believable or for me to care. I was rooting for Faith and her husband to get back together after his confession.

2. The whole sub-plot of Faith constantly on the run, changing her name, in fear of her husband finding her was just silly. When he finally did find her that plot fizzled right out. Suddenly she had spent 18 months in fear for nothing. And there was not nearly enough background story for that sub-plot. It just felt like it was thrown in there. And for a man who loved his wife and was chasing her down he gave her up awfully quick and easy. I didn't get this.

3. Will got over Faith being married and keeping her past from him too quick. His reaction to her confession of her sordid and tragic past was to basically say "oh, well, let's have some more sex." No emotion tied to it whatsoever.

4. Faith's personality seemed to be inconsistent with her past and what she had to go through to survive to adulthood. Right off she was giving Will advice on parenting his troubled teenage son. Where, in her running from town to town and job to job did she gain parental experience and knowledge and insight? Then she is quoting Rudyard Kipling like she was a well educated, well-bread adult. At the beginning she is a scared, vulnerable person, just hiding out and trying to lay low, then suddenly she is all confidence and comfortable and wise beyond her upbringing. Her speach patterns and dialogue just didn't fit. Think Eve Dallas, and that is more what I expected from Faith.

5. Finally, I stopped reading when Josh walks in on them after they had sex and being troubled and unsure of his fit with Will, stomps out angrilly. Will's response was "He'll get over it" and goes back to kissing Faith. Will had been a parent for all of 3 months and suddenly he is knowledgeable and confident in his response to Josh's upset. Will finding out he has a teenage son and trying to parent him could have been interesting reading and would have given the characters more depth, but for most of the book Josh is off with his grandpa and not even part of the story.

Will and Faith are just silly characters and there are too many red herrings that just seem in the way. I may finish the book, but I know who the killer is. Though, I can't fathom how he is made who he is from what he was supposed to have come from also. But that would just match the rest.

I liked Ross' Irish stories and her Louisana Bayou trilogy. I even liked Blaze. This one just seemed uneven.

I won't go into the plot as that's already been covered. This was definitely suspense/thriller at its very best. The chemistry between Will and Faith was intense.

There were a few things that could have used more background information:
1. The boy raised by wolves.
2. Will and Faith in Georgia.
3. Faith's life in Las Vegas.

Boy, do I ever agree with Katydid!!! This book was horrible!!!!! She was right in saying that the story could have been done so, so much better. The writing was terrible, and I am quite sure that this book could NOT have been proofread! Everything about it was annoying, including the characters. The dialogue was stilted, and there was no horror here, believe me. It wasn't dark, it wasn't sinister, it wasn't scary.....but horrible? Sure!!! Norm Applegate better stick with something else. I can't believe there are people out there who actually thought this book was good!!

This book is very addicting and easy to read. It kept me wanting more. I'm looking forward to the next book

The kernel of the story was good, but the spelling errors, grammatical mistakes, and punctuation totally distracted me. Did no one proofread this at all? The author doesn't know the difference between "you're" and "your", and at one point within two pages the narration shifted from first to third and back again. Just sloppy and confusing. I had to really work to understand the dialogue at times, it was so horribly written.

The main character was not very sympathetic either. I'm sick to death of these "tough as nails" chicks who really are just in need of some serious therapy. I'm so sorry I wasted my money on this book.

Norm Applegate is an inventive writer with a smooth style - He is not shy to create a very different premise for a book and for a series. Into the Basement is the 1st in the Kim Bennett thriller series - She is not your ordinary female lead - she is a Dominatrix in San Francisco and is one tough lady - She is called into a missing persons case, joining several members of the police where the victims seem to be 'in the industry'... She can go where they can't - in X-rated adult clubs, etc..
A very bad guy, Wong Lee, has a Russian thug to kidnap these girls (to Wong's specifications) and delivers them to Lee, who has a very kinky chamber of horrors in his basement (hence the title) - Lee has been into human trafficking, drugs, and now, the film industry - the snuff film industry. Kim faces the challenges of being in a world where pain can be the norm, and that works in her favor -

This is a very adult thriller with an edge - There are graphic sex and domination scenes - It is something I had never read in a main character, but you end up really liking Kim Bennett. She has integrity and purpose to help find who is taking these girls-
The next in the series is Into the Spell, another taut outing for Mr. Applegate - This looks to be the next generation thriller - explosive, adult, with surprising twists and turns, and above all, scary.
An excellent outing - You'll be waiting for the next in the series...

This book was terrifying, with the most unusual of heros. A great diversion for the summer.

I'm in the process of reading this book and just got to BTK and am constantly considering putting this book down.

I was very interested in the author's take on things through the vantage of a communications expert, but anything that he states is rather obvious, oftentimes redundant, or otherwise banal. Moreover, He should also not be citing "Serial Killers A to Z" as a source.

Further, the book is laden with typos, awkward phrasing and poor editing. In several chapters he lists significant people in the cases only by their last names and with no introduction whatsoever. Gibson also refers to crimes and murders committed by the killers, yet not covered in the book, but gives no explanation of what he's talking about.

I'm sure that this guy is perfectly smart and everything. However, some of the major points in the letters are overlooked and not even mentioned. (i.e. Mad Butcher Letter describes a burial in California - Gibson doesn't even note it.)

Granted there are tons of serial killers out there, many of which have communicated with law enforcement and the media, but I think Gibson should have chosen some who communicate in different ways. (i.e. the Green River Killer, who communicated through his mutilation of the bodies.)

If you're going to read a book about serial killers read this one: Serial Killers: The Insatiable Passion It's a little dry at times but thoroughly informative.

CLUES FROM KILLERS is a topical book which defies expectations. It uses techniques of rhetorical criticism in an integrative way to shed light on the diverse communications serial killers have left behind at crime scenes. Author Dirk Gibson acknowledges his indebtedness to recent developments in historiography, and the influence of the Annalistes is felt in the writing of each chapter and in the overall method of the book. Journalistic acumen is paired with solid historical research to create vivid pictures not just of these infamous killers, but of their hapless victims in diverse places, times and social circumstances. This did much to sustain my interest in the human drama attendant upon some of the most loathsome crimes imaginable. Mr. Gibson takes the reader on a dark ride of crimes and communications perpetrated by 10 different serial killers, from New York's Son of Sam to LA's Black Dahlia Avenger, with lethal stops at the hands of Jack the Ripper, the Unabomber, the Zodiac Killer, and the recently arrested Scout Leader, Dog Catcher and Church attendee from Kansas who is best be known by his communicated moniker as the BTK Killer.

Given this grim subject matter, Mr. Gibson's approach is dispassionate and informative. He brings the tools of rhetorical analysis to bear on the culprits' communications, and produces insights which will be helpful to laypersons as well as to professionals in law enforcement and communications studies. In describing the initial letter from the BTK killer, written after the first killing in 1974, Mr. Gibson notes that : "The writer meant to terrify by predicting more murders. Yet other sections seemed intellectual and intended to inform." Terse non-judgmental analysis like this sketches the personality profile of the apprehended subject, a bipolar individual with developed rational powers who liked to let other people know when they'd committed infractions of regulations, coexisting with a sadistic killer beyond the pale of human conduct. With similar analysis Dirk Gibson builds a case that serial killers are driven to communicate verbally, sometimes in ways taunting the police by extolling the killers' own supposed prowess in escaping detection, sometimes as informational recountings of the crimes, and then again as psychotic threats by monsters intent on subsequent murder. The book broadens the topology of communication studies; it is also to be hoped that the research done here might help law enforcement in future efforts to catch such repeat killlers early.

CLUES FROM KILLERS is thoroughly grounded in the facts of the killings, the killers and their means of communicating. The book integrated police reports, journalistic accounts and a broad range of secondary sources in a clear style refreshingly free of academic jargon. Reading the book made me curious to know more about these crimes. The only recommendation I would make to the author for the book's second edition might be a timeline for each killer, giving the names, dates and places of each murder with a parallel track of where when and how the killers communicated. This would do much to simplify the basic chronology of these cases for the uninformed reader. The illustrations included in the book include photocopies of some of the Ripper letters, as well as copies of messages from the uncaught Zodiac Killer and a photo of Chicago killer William Heirens' lipstick on the wall scrawl left at the crime scene: "For heaven's sake catch me before I kill more I cannot control myself." Such copies of actual messages do much to supplement Dirk Gibson's skillful communication analysis, and I hope that in future editions (or future books related to this subject) more copies of such documents might be included.

Finally, criticism of this book by an earlier reader is loaded and unfair. It is possible that Mr. Gibson didn't name the proper Mayor of Kansas City when murderer John Robinson attempted to get himself voted "Man of the Year" in Kansas City in 1997. If so, it's a slip-up which should be corrected. But this type of criticism (finding a tangential error of fact and using it to call into question the content and method of the whole book) is a time-honored debaters' trick and may well be more indicative of professional jealousy than sober judgment on that reviwer's part. It should in no way dissuade sensible readers from buying this good book about evil men and their manner of communication.

Of the three serial murderer books that I purchased, this was by and large my least favorite. The pictures included were great and unique, but I found a lot of the text to be redundant with a knack for overstating the obvious. Perhaps I was just expecting a different writing style?

I couldnt put this book down once we received it in the mail. Its a great book for anyone who wants to study the mind of killers. Thanks for bringing such a great book to us serious readers out here!!
sandy- from Iowa

I read some of the reviews prior to reading the book. I felt that Mr. Newnam's comments were quite helpful while Dominiques were not. The book conveys information that was very useful for the research I am currently involved in. I felt the format of the book made it very easy to follow and it kept my interest throughout.

I found this a well done overview of these assasinations. There is an obvious conspiracy surronding all of these deaths, these men stood for something dangerous...opposition of globalism. I wish the chapter on Lincoln was a little longer, but overall great.

To me, this book represented everything that's wrong with conspiracy theory. And don't get me wrong, I consider myself pretty open-minded to conspiracy theory. I'm actually a bit of a mini-expert, having read almost all major books on the subject as well as some more obscure volumes, such as this one. Sometimes these little 'underground' conspiracy theory books are just a little wacky, and at first, make you squinch up your face and go "No, get outta here!" but then the more you read, the more they start to make sense. If not true, then definitely feasible. Now, the book at hand. The 'elite' in the author's eyes are the Rothschilds, described as direct descendants of the tribes of Israel. These men -(and women)- are allegedly responsible for all the major wars and conflicts in modern history, extending back to medieval Europe, and beyond... Well, a few chapters into this book, and the constant referrences to this family of Jews whole supposedly control all the world's money and who also largely control global policy, and specifically U.S. foreign policy. Although, in consideration of their
-(alleged)- larger, global schemes to control the world, these assassinations seem downright small potatoes. Anyway, to me, it reminded me of "the Protocols of the Elders of Zion." If you haven't researched this book and read at least a few books on the story of the "Protocols," I'm going to go ahead and say it : "Read More Conspiracy Theory!" The story goes like this -(I'll try to keep it terse <~amazon word, like that?)- The Russian secret police, in Czarist Russia came up with the Protocols to drum up Anti-Semitism and achieved great success toward that goal. "The Protocols" were an outline for world domination, a Jewish secret council that secretly meets to plot to take over the world. This of course is Fascist baloney and to further prove the baloney-osity of the whole ordeal, it was proven to be plagiarised from a book entitled "the Dialogues in Hell Between Montesquieu and Machiavelli" by Maurice Joly, an anti-imperialist work of satire. I'm not saying "The Elitet is a bad book, an I'm definitely not saying there is not some interesting and valid history in there, but on the whole it smacked of thinly-veiled anti-semitism, and I cannot abide Fascism. For more info on the Protocols, I would STRONGLY recommend "the Plot" by comics legend Will Eisner, in which he chronicles the long, interesting history of the false document that refuses to be killed, despite it's obviously insane origins and underlying motives. Oh, and I do think people should read "The Elite Serial Killers" because it is very well written and I always like to read different perspectives, no matter my own personal views.

A very good book that gives the readers
relaible names for those who killed some
very important leaders over the years.
Believe it or not Mr and Mrs America,
we got real problems. And that's the
way Big Brother wants it!

This Book, "The elite serial killers of Lincoln, JFK, RFK, and MLK" is a very important book.
It is both disturbing, as well as being a breath of fresh air.
It is disturbing, because it shows how the elite, (The rich, influential bigwigs among us) control almost every establishment in America, and how they have from the very first day!
It is a breath of fresh air, because, now that we have exposed these pimples on the rear end of our Democracy, perhaps we can defeat them, and bankrupt them, which will render them powerless, because money, and money alone allows them to believe that they have a right to rule over us and dictate our history and our freedom and indeed our very lives.
They are the Phantom Menace to our freedom and to peace as well.
They must be dealt with and step one is KNOWLEDGE. By reading this book and learning about the forces of evil, we can then understand how to defeat them.
By being strong in Spirit. Not in the pocketbook, which leads to greed, death, and spiritual weakness.
Money cannot buy happiness and cannot make us feel better. Once we get over that ignorant thought process, we will have come to a new beautiful eye opening reality.

"RIVETING" Perhaps the most REVEALING book that I have read as to the "powers" that CONTROL politics, creation of wars and the manner in which we live on an everyday basis. JUST FOLLOW THE "BIG" MONEY. Absolutely frighting and educational as to the "conditions that exist TODAY." This book made me realize how totally ignorant that I am and have been, even though I consisered myself well-informed. An absolute MUST READ for those of us who desire to be aware of the "reasons" that events happen. I have never gone out of my way to FULLY recommend a particular book until I read this one.