Serial Killers Books

The title of the book is deceiving. It sounds very exciting. But the book just does not hold your attention. The writing isn't very good. I am sorry, the book IS readable, but I would not recommend this book to true crime buffs.

I have been following the Zodiac case through books, DVD's and the internet over the past year and a half. My interest mostly stems from the fact that I grew up in Benicia and lived three miles from the first crime scene. This book is basically a very brief outline of the major Zodiac crimes and is only 56 pages long. Unfortuantely, it does not shed any new light other than what a person could gather from any one of the web pages concerning the Zodiac. (As a matter of fact, it is even available as a free down load.) It does not even share the author's name. Maybe if it were an "autobiography," it would have been more interesting than a "Biographiq". Unless you are a collector of Zodiac related items, I would recommend going to the free down load to satisfy any curiosity that you may have.

This might not be Cornwell's best Scarpetta book, but I enjoyed it. The characters are growing and evolving as they should. I thought the end of this book was a real shocker and very creative. What really amuses me about these books, however, is the timeframe of the stories: in 20 years, Lucy has aged 20 years while Scarpetta and Pete have aged about 5 years. Don't you find that interesting?

I just reread Predator to compare it to the more recent Book of the Dead by Cornwell. I absolutely loved Predator and have a feeling that the one star reviews from people on this board either 1) didn't get the point of the book, as it was a bit complex, or 2) are simply looking for some tired old regurgitated prepackaged crime story that follows a recipe to a predictable end. This is never the case with Cornwell, who constantly amazes me with her originality, and timeliness of her original research. Yes, one had to pay attention while reading this book but for those of us who actually enjoy the unfolding of a story, that's the fun of it. For those of you who want something simpler or more predictable, try another author-keep it up Cornwell-we love it!

I have always found Patricia Cornwell novels excellent. I enjoy the ones with Kay Scarpetta in them... have not enjoyed the others as much. I have read every book with Kay Scarpetta in them and am anxiously awaiting the next one.

'Predator' was my introduction to Patricia Cornwell's books. I do wish that I'd chosen to start with a previous book instead of using Predator as my introduction to Cornwell's cast. The book immediately throws its characters into a chaotic mess of roiling emotions, paranoia and anger fueled by sabotage, and I think this would have more impact after having followed the characters around under more 'normal' (for them, anyway) circumstances for a few books. That said, I was still able to get into the characters, get a sense for them and their lives, and appreciate most of what was happening to them.

Cornwell writes in a clinical, almost detached present tense that wouldn't work for most writers; in most books it would keep the reader distant and uninvolved. Instead, in this case it beautifully conveys the way in which the investigators go about their work without also robbing the story of its emotive impact. I'm sure there are people who won't enjoy this approach, but I liked it.

Obviously since this is the first of Cornwell's books that I've read I can't speak to ongoing issues, relationships, etc. in the books, or to its quality vs. her other novels, but as a first read of her work I definitely enjoyed it and hope to read more soon.

This book was like half a book -- something Cornwell sat down and spewed out over a long weekend or so. In general, authors would then go back and edit their work, but it appears in this case that her half-baked manuscript somehow made it past all the editorial gatekeepers, straight to hard copy.

I hate how everyone in Scarpetta's life is so dysfunctional, grumpy, and repetitive. And I hate how Cornwell left us hanging with so many unanswered questions and incomplete plot points (what the heck happened to Joe???). And I hate that I spent money on this awful book.

This book is entertaining enough if you're stuck in a waiting room. I'm not inspired to drag it out anywhere else.

I can not say this book was well written. It did way too much skipping around to hold my concentration. I usually will finish a book of this size in one day. It took me over a week to finish this story. It also appeared that Janice wanted to use catchy phrases,throughout the book, that just backfired. I do belive Janice had the most horrible of childhoods, and did truely belive her daddy WAS the black dahlia killer. I pray Janice finds the peace in death that she never had in life.

Even though "Daddy Was the Black Dahlia Killer" is a good read the reader will have the tendency of getting lost about what the book is all about. The author goes into great detail describing the family ties of Janice Knowlton. After an exhaustive description of the family members, the author then describes, again, comprehensively the psychological misgivings of Janice Knowlton. This would have been not only interesting and important information if the author had not extensively described both subjects. The extensive exhaustive family descriptions and psychological misgivings make the reader feel as if he or she was reading a Professional Manual in the study of Genealogy and Psychology.

However, after getting out of that forest of Professional Manuals, the reader is able to get back in to what the story is all about. It is interesting and sad at the same time the Los Angeles police department at the time botched the investigation in such a way that not even the evidence provided by Janice Knowlton closed the case.

The reader is led to believe someone or something made sure the case would never be solved. The Los Angeles police refused to make the Black Dahlia file open to the public for scrutiny and perhaps find out why the case has never been solved despite the extensive and credible evidence provided by Janice Knowlton.

The story has various graphic and gut-wrenching parts which makes one think why didn't someone stopped the grotesque, devilish, unbelievable, and animalistic actions against human beings by Janice Knowlton's father. The reader will not be able fathom how a human being is able to perform such atrocious devilish acts.


I recommend the book with the reservation that children and adolescents do not have access to it.

I can't believe the negative reviews of this book. I read it a few years ago and it has haunted me ever since. (I believe I wrote a positive, earlier review.) The recent movie about the subject is based on James Ellroy's novel, which I did not enjoy anywhere near as much as this truly amazing horror tale. I completely believed the author; it was a great story; it was a terrifying, disturbing story, and it all made (and still makes) sense to me. I found it a great read - one of the best "true crime" books available, and I support Janice Knowlton's coming forward with an incredibly tragic story. Yes, it all adds up, including the fact that her father and Elizabeth Short came from Medford; and I was in agreement that it's possible her father was the Boston Strangler, too, since he was living in Medford and commuting to the neighborhood where the stranglings took place...at the time that they did. Everyone from Boston knows Albert DeSalvo was probably not the Strangler. I can't imagine why this story is not taken more seriously. It could be that people need the killer to be a physician or person from the Hollywood community....not a "common" serial killer no one's ever heard much about. I highly recommend this book, and I just wanted Ms. Knowlton to know that I still think about her and wish her all the best...she deserves it.

This is one of the worse books I've ever read. This poor woman needed to believe that the abuse she suffered had to be connected to a greater evil. It simply doesn't make sense in connection with the case. Add to it the fact that she was bipolar and eventually committed suicide- I think anything this woman said was warped by her own need to validate her experiences.

I thought the book was very disturbing. First of all, it skipped around too much and it delved into the life of the author, which I found strange. Secondly, why did they have to put those awfully graphic pictures in there? And third, the short stories and cookbook were totally inappropriate material for the topic of the actual book. Another thing, why did they give Mr. Suff's family(Don)half the proceeds from this book? It should've went to the victims families. And last might I add that Kimberly Lyttle had been a childhood friend of mine whom I had not seen in years and I was truly devastated by her death and the fact that she left behind a daughter and father who loved her.

There is material for a great book in here somewhere: prostitute killer Bill Suff, despite his ordinary exterior, was one weird dude. Most of his victims he left posed in strange positions. One had her head buried in the ground, another was dressed in a bizarre outfit complete with comical striped socks, a light bulb carefully inserted inside her womb. Obviously, the guy had some issues. Lane promises to dig deep into Suff's psyche, but by the end of the book he has merely scratched the surface. He reprints pages of Suff's own writing (including a cookbook, of all things), which isn't as interesting as he would like us to believe, and spends much of the book ruminating over his own life, which is definitely tragic and twisted in its own right, but not relevant enough to the case of Bill Suff to merit inclusion (maybe in another book?). There is no mistaking that Lane is a talented writer, and that there are sections of the book that are genuinely insightful, but all the more reason to be disappointed when the whole thing doesn't cohere in the end. The best that can be said for it is that it is probably worth being frustated by.

Hack screenwriter Brian Lane tries to capitalize on his being a serial killer's lawyer with this mess of a publication, a witch's brew of foul ingredients: multiple murderer/mutilator William Suff's own pathetic fiction, Lane's wimpy justifications of his own unfortunate past, and believe it or not: a cookbook by Suff ! Includes sickening photos of Suff's victims, and ludricrous alibis for the very unphotogenic Suff.

Where to start with this whiff of literary effluvia? The first thing you'll notice are the disturbingly gruesome pictures. That's no mistake. The author must have gone through every police file available to get the nastiest, most shocking shots he could. He HAD to, otherwise he would never have sold a single copy of this...book. The pictures are there to distract you from the author's endless, boring stories about HIMSELF. I'd say a quarter of this book is about the life and crimes of Bill Suff, and the rest is a vainglorious autobiography of the author himself: An uplifting tale of a nerdy boy who grew into a rabbity man, overcoming obstacles such as car accidents and invisibility to pretty girls until he eventually found his calling as a writer for Matlock and Hunter. WHO CARES? Shut up already!

The inclusion of Bill Suff's cookbook and his idiotic writings (a lame ghost story and a tale about a gentle soul who's been wrongly imprisoned - talk about someone who watches too much tv) are there for the same reason as the pictures. The novelty of a serial killer cookbook will sell more copies. The irony is that the author praises these writings as unusually professional - like he would know what that looks like! But he's got a point. Compared to his own, they really are.

Another thing that bothers me is the "Novelization" of the murders. Apparently, the author can read the thoughts of the victims and detail how they tried to bargain with their killer, despite the fact that they never lived to tell what they had been thinking that day, and their killer isn't about to tell anyone what they said either. How does the author know that Suff licked a victim and thought she tasted "sweet"? How does he know that the victim, a prostitute, had been happy that all her customers were easy to please that day? It's all just speculation. The thing about Suff putting a body part into his award-winning chili for the cookoff is speculation too. There's no proof, just innuendo that might sell more copies.

This is a really boring book. You can skip page after page and not miss a thing. Brian Alan Lane should go back to writing unmemorable episodes of barely memorable tv shows and leave the real writing to someone can pay attention to the subject.

I am appalled that this book would even be published. Not only is this book unnecessary but distasteful and disrespectful, especially to the victims' families. I am a daughter of one of the victims, and to hear that this garbage is out there and that William Suff is getting any type of recognition as well as a profit for the heinous crimes is disturbing. Maybe there should be a book about the hard times and the pain and the impact this made on each family and what they had to overcome. Not some sick deranged man, that is getting credit for killing women.

One of the oddest and most far-ranging true-crime titles I've ever read. Some idea of its scope can be had from the fact that the author, in discussing the Egyptian/Muslim background of the serial killer in question (one Sharif Omar), actually touches down in Afghanistan and describes rapes committed by a highly misogynistic set of men called the Taleban. Not so surprising, you might think, but this is in a book first published in 2000. The author's obvious animus against organized religion paid off there, in a sick kinda way, but I wasn't so happy about his attacks on the Catholic church, which has undoubtedly done far more good in the Mexican context than harm. On the other hand, there were some vivid descriptions of Mexican life (and wildlife) and settings and a fascination with the minutiae of human psychology and behavior to set against the strong and even bigoted opinions expressed, and I feel myself attracted almost against my will into a second read. Not only have I never read a true-crime book that explained why jaguars' eyes glow at night, I never imagined it was possible, let alone that it might be relevant to the psychology of serial killing. I'm not sure there's method in the madness of connexions like that but watching them being drawn was sometimes fun.

Over the years, I've read a lot of true crime books, many of them about serial killer cases. In that time, I've come to expect a certain pattern to be followed. First, describe the crimes themselves...what was done, who the victims were, what the effect was on the victim's loved ones and the community as a whole. Next, detail the police investigation...what steps were taken to find the guilty party and make an arrest. Third, profile the accused killer, with an eye towards finding out what it was in his background that would make him do such unspeakable things. Finally, cover the trial and conviction.

Whitechapel doesn't do any of that here. Granted, the fact that the case is still officially unsolved lets him off the hook for not covering the trial and conviction, but the lack of coverage on the other three mainstays is unforgivable.

Instead, Whitechapel seems to think he's a college professor giving a lecture on what type of society and cultural shortcomings could lead to someone committing these types of crimes. The information he provides as he does this is tangential to the case at best, and is presented so dryly and without passion as to make it a great cure for insomnia. For example: when, in your last chapter, you are trying to make the point that various special interest groups have given great weight and publicity to the cases to further their own agendas, and you feel that to help you make this point you have to spend no less than four pages outlining the case of the Greek female mathematician Hypatia...whom no one but Greek scholars will have even heard of, I'm sure...it's time for an editor with some common sense to step in.

In short, this is easily the most wearisome true crime book I have ever tried to wade through. Had I known in advance that this is what I'd get, I'd never have ordered it. Frankly, I think Whitechapel owes me a refund.

I'm sorry that I bought this, and sorrier that I read it. I would still like to understand how Sharif Sharif, an oil company chemist, apparently a serial rapist, was able to commit multiple rapes, with little punishment, and was deported, not back to Egypt, but to Mexico. The author contends that Sharif committed rapes and murders in Juarez, and then master-minded more from behind bars.

The book would have been much improved by background information on the rape cases, and the involvement of his oil-company employers in helping him get off with little or no punishment. The author's speculations and personal opinions were substituted for actual investigation of facts and court records. A two-page tirade about the abnormality of homosexuality and frequent quotes from Colin Wilson don't make up for lack of solid investigative work.

The author did have some interesting ideas about how the young women killed were exploited by the factories which employed them, then by their attackers, and then by feminist political groups. I'd go a little further and say that the author joined in and exploited the victims as well, as there are few attempts to accurately reconstruct these women's lives or portray them as real people. There are quotations from other authors, a lot of philosphical ramblings (until you think you are reading an endless freshman comp lit paper), but little compassion, and quite a bit of breathless fascination with Sharif's cunning, charisma, and personal appearance.

Arrgh, arrgh, arrgh. "Love Me to Death" made me want to choke someone. Sorry, that's tacky. How about, made me want to slap the author?

There are two reasons. It is absolutely beyond understanding why writers so often want to put themselves in the center of the story when they aren't part of the story. Grr. Yes, sometimes they are, and yes, perhaps a little "me-ism" is appropriate, occasionally, once in a while, when absolutely necessary.

In other words, just a little.

But this story about the murderous path of one Richard Caputo is really all about the writer's experiences in writing about Caputo. That's not to say there's nothing about him, of course, because there is. But I really don't care about how Linda Wolfe had to race across town to get to the lawyer's office just in time. Really.

Por ejemplo:
"The area around most courthouses, except in Manhattan where the courts are cheek by jowl with Chinatown, is a culinary wasteland. So I didn't expect to find a decent restaurant. I just left the building, ran through the cold, stll-pelting rain and entered the first eatery I encountered. It was an Asian lunch counter where the food, precooked and displayed in warming trays, looked gluey and unidentifiable. I ordered something the counterman said was chicken and vegetables and started to put it down on a table, when suddenly I noticed Kennedy (the defense lawyer she's been trying to reach) behind me. He too had chosen this closest-at-hand canteen.
What good fortune! I suggested we eat together. "Maybe we could do that interview about your past," I said.
"My past? I don't think I want to talk about that over lunch," he frowned. It might make me sick."
"Maybe," I laughed, "we can find other things to talk about."
"Sure."

And so on. And so on, semi-remembered details about unimportant moments that put the author into the center of the story. You see, it would be okay if these personal details added something to the story, but they don't. This How I Got That Story approach reeks of self-absorption, and not very incisive absorption at that.

Wolfe is better at other times, even while injecting herself into the story. For example, when she contacts and meets Caputo's wealthy brother and describes her fears--does his sociopathic behavior run in the family?, she wonders--the first-person approach works a little better. In Wolfe's case, there's some legitimate reason for starting on the first-person approach--she knew one of the victims, and sets off to track the killer. But she gets so caught up in herself that we lose track of the victims, and so her hard work in collecting information is buried under the Me details.

Second, there's not enough depth here. A real, live serial killer who committed his crimes through his ability to wine and dine, con, control and ultimately murder one woman after another would seem to be prime ground for writing and reporting. Caputo is a fascinating and frightening character. For the record, Caputo was an immigrant from Argentina who admitted to murdering four women, though he's suspected of committing far more. He moved his Don Juan act around the country and to Mexico.

On his journey, he conned plenty of people, not just the victims but often their families, friends and work colleagues, most of whom fell for his charming styles until his murderous instincts got the better of him. And his killings occurred over a period of two decades, an unusually long time for a serial killer to operate.

Wolfe does come up with some interesting details: Caputo's childhood fascination with rape, his [] attempt to portray himself as a victim of abuse and even a victim of his victims, his charm and the failings of the judicial and psychiatric system to put him away before he could kill again.

But this book just doesn't quite cut it. Maybe, in emulating this book, I could write a book on her book, using the extremely brutal murder of someone I knew to write about what we who knew him did and didn't do, comparing it to what Wolfe thought. Hmm. It would be just about as useful as this book. Notice how annoying it is when I add mine own little non-story. Geez.

This book was very disappointing in that not only was it not typical "catch the killer" narrative that most true crime accounts are. It was hard to read and included too many impressions of the author.

This is a book that concentrates too heavily on the Author's personal thoughts and unnessary lenghty descriptions of bit players looks,weight etc.. There are too many pages that you want to skip while reading it because of boredom.

I actually read the entirety of this book hoping that it would get better but sadly, it did not. To begin with, it's very badly edited and extremely poorly written. The title is absolutely deceptive because he uses the term "serial killer" for every person that ever killed and got some public attention for it, even public executioners. The division of the book is very random and while some of the cases are at least presented in a coherent manner, some are very poorly researched, and some are even hard to understand because of the disjointed manner in which they're written. I paid $2.99 for the book and I wish I had my money(and the time I spent reading the book) back.

I got a copy of this book for free, and I gave it back after reading the intro and a few chapters.

It's basically a series of high-school level essays about various "serial killers". Included among actual serial killers like Jack the Ripper and BTK are William the Conquerer, Saddam Hussein (a mass murderer, perhaps, but I've never heard him called a serial killer before), and Mary, Queen of Scotts. Most accounts seem pretty accurate in the historical details, although very superficial, but the motivations assigned to the killers don't mesh with modern behavioral/forensic psychology, at least in the sections I read.

There are a lot of very good books out there that really delve into the question of what makes some people kill in this way and what we can do as a society, but this book isn't one of them.

I was a Marine Corps Scout Sniper for many years and am well read on the history of the subject. This book just isn't very good. It is historically inaccurate and plays fast and loose with the facts. The chapter on Zaitsev surprised me. Everyone knows the guy wasn't real and was made up for Russian propaganda mills. The author acknowledges the dispute but says he will assume Zaitsev was real and writes an entire chapter on a fictional person. He also says that Russian snipers with experience in Chechnya were hired as mercenaries by the israelis to shoot Palestinianse. Why? Because Israel doesn't have any good snipers. Yeah. I happen to have some personal experience in that area and all i can say is don't waste your time.

It's difficult to know where to begin with this book, but the authors' statement that it was formulated in a pub after several drinks explains a lot. It is riddled with inaccuracies and irrelevant text, much of it in the form of quotes from novelists such as Remarque and Fleming, neither of whom were renown for their expertise on firearms. [Fleming disliked guns and had to have the workings of the Walther PPk pistol explained to him.]
The chapter topics are curious as well, the death of Nelson [the result of a lucky shot by a French marine and not sniping in even its remotest sense] receives six pages, whereas the Great War, from whence came all current sniping knowledge, receives a scant four. Neither do the authors appear to understand even the basics of firearms technology - musket balls are undersized, not oversized. Priming powder does not fall out of the pan on flintlocks [the frizzen closes over it to prevent this]. Percussion ignition did not happen in the 1790's and British cartridges were never lubricated with animal fat, beeswax and tallow were used.
The dismissal of the abilities of the Enfield P14 rifle are curious too, for it was not introduced as a sniping weapon until AFTER the Great War had ended, yet the widespread use of the Short, Magazine Lee-Enfield as the primary Commonwealth sniping rifle during the war is bafflingly ignored. There is even a little short story at the end of the book, possibly to make up for the lack of hard substance.
One could go on, but frankly, life is too short to read bad books. Save your money, there are better publications out there.

This book contains enormous amounts of typographical errors and awkwardly worded passages. It also repeats the same words unnecessarily and uses very subjective speech. I am around 75% done with the book at the moment and none of the mini-biographical sections have had ANY references for where the author(s) have extracted their information.

The book seems like it was produced without any sort of editorial critique. There was obviously a very major mistake made at Time Warner prior to its release. I have been searching to see if there was a re-release after they fixed the grammar. I'm quite surprised that it is still being sold (when you consider that there is no support for any of their claims).

That being said, there is some rough correlation between some of the familiar cases and what I have learned through other mediums. My suggestion would be to not even consider purchasing this book. Hope this helps.