Serial Murder Books

Our beloved Kate and Cam are back in this next book of the Kate Carpenter Mysteries, but this one far surpasses the previous.
Kate and Cam find themselves at a crossroad in their relationship; one that may well end in disaster and we see Cam leave our heroin to take a trip alone that was meant for the two of them. Kate, now confused and hurting is thrust into a relationship with another and again is plunged into a life and death situation of murder, mayhem and mystery.
I feel author, Deborah Nicholson has truly outdone herself in this latest work. Her growth as a writer is extremely evident as she holds your thoughts captive in this read. She brings romance, mystery and adventure expertly into this work and intertwines characters in the storyline that are both loveable and repulsive. You never forget Cam, although he is not present through most of the read and you find yourself in the same emotional dilemma concerning heartstrings to him that Kate is feeling.This is always a mark of an excellent writer when they pull you into the mind of their character.
You wonder about Kate; is her spirit truly one with Cam or will her heart belong to another? And who is after Kate and why?
I have to say this is truly the best work by Deborah Nicholson yet; grabbing your attention and understanding of the story whether this is your first taste of this series or if you are reading along with each outstanding book as it is released. I honestly give this book my highest recommendation. It is one of romance, mystery, adventure and a storyline with heart. I believe we truly have another winner. Well done!

In Double Double writer/detective Ellery Queen (son of Police Inspector Richard Queen) is summoned to the small town of Wrightsville to investigate the death of the town drunk. After receiving anonymous letters implying a link between the apparent killing of Tom Anderson with the supposedly natural death of wealthy Luke MacCaby and the apparent suicide of bankrupt John Hart, Ellery is visited by Anderson's daughter, who the drunk / beggar had named Rima after the bird-girl in Green Mansions - and raised accrodingly. Though educated beyond her years, the shy girl has no worldly knowledge, no social experience. She asks Ellery to look into her fathers death.

The only connections Ellery can find between the decedents is their relationships with Doctor Dodd and his gardener, who had previously been gardener to both the rich man and the poor man, and friend of the drunk/beggar. When a third friend of the latter, the town thief, is killed in self defense by Doctor Dodd's associate, Doctor Winship, Ellery notices a childish pattern in the victims: Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief. The next line in that rhyme begins "Doctor, lawyer . . . " leading Ellery to assume Doctor Dodd is next, though he had been beginning to suspect the Doctor himself. Meanwile, Doctor Winship and Rima get married.

The plot isn't a typical whodunnit formula, but more like "Ten Little Indians," with more victims dropping dead during the investigation. This keeps it suspenseful, and there are enough suspects - the gardener, Rima herself, two doctors, even a lawyer - that the final logical solution still comes as a somewhat effective surprise - especially after Ellery learns that the rhyme exists with various endings: "Indian chief," "Merchant chief," "Merchant, Chief" . . .

I didn't find any flaws, and thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

This book has also been printed with the alternate title "Seven Murders."

I saw Good Girl Wants It Bad on the bookstore shelf and picked it up on a whim and was immediately enthralled by the dark language and unsettling humor. I couldn't put the memoirs of a nineteen-year-old nymphomaniac serial killer on death row down. With dark humor, beautiful prose and disturbing descriptions, Delilah "Lah" Riordan regales the reader with her life story and countdown to her demise. She also tells us about her affairs with her prison psychologists and research analysts. The secrets surrounding the murders she had been convicted for are discovered throughout her entries, legal files, interviews and letters.

Good Girl Wants It Bad is one of the darkest, most disturbing novels I've recently read. Scott Bradfield delves into the psyche of a deluded young woman and her sad childhood and dependency toward men and sex with excellent insight and prose. The book may come across as confusing at times. Lah has a rather disarming way of convincing herself and the reader that she is the proverbial "good girl," just someone who has been deeply misunderstood. And she does come across as endearing and even innocent in some very darkly funny scenes. Are you in the bargain for something dark, literary and different? I strongly suggest you give this novel a whirl. I am so glad I stumbled upon this book. For it is one of my best reading investments of the year!

Wisconsin has a very strange and notorious history of serial killers and macabre murders ranging from such infamous characters as Ed Gein and Jeffrey Dahmer. "Got Murder?: The Shocking Story Of Wisconsin's Notorious Killers" by Wisconsin author Martin Hintz is a compilation of Badger State crimes and criminals whose lethal behavior has never been so well detailed and annotated. as they have in this compendium of true crime stories. From the murder of Frank Lloyd Wrights lover and her children with a hatchet; to Ed Gein's grave robbing and bizarre butchery; to a deer-hunting trip that left six people dead, to the cannibalism of Jeffrey Dahmer, these stories range from Wisconsin's pioneer era down to today's newspaper headlines. Strongly recommended for personal and community library 'true crime' collections and reading lists, "Got Murder?" is fascinating, riveting anthology of stories that brings a whole new and dark dimension to Wisconsin history.

Ever since the infamous Jimmy Weir trial in South Carolina, North Carolina forensic psychologist, Portia McTeague, has withdrawn from high profile cases that used to be her crusade. Instead, Portia is paying closer attention to her private practice as well as providing volunteer counseling at the Help Line. However, to her chagrin, Portia misses the stress and challenge of diving inside the mind of a sociopath.

As Portia becomes antsy, a famous TV psychic, allegedly having healing hands, is raped, mutilated, and killed. The media jumps all over the case, adding pressure on the Charlotte police to identify the culprit. Portia tries to profile the perpetrator by getting inside his head so she can predict his next action. While the psychologist plays mind games with a serial killer, he intends to make her his next victim.

HELP LINE is an outstanding, yet unusual, psychological suspense that includes a surprise but believable ending. Fay Sultan is the queen of providing a mesmerizing tale that has the heroine and the villain sharing similar traumas and abuse. This leaves readers wanting to understand Portia's behavior and choices. There has to be a sequal to this book so that the auduence can see if Portia can get out of her current troubles and to discover if she learned anything from the experience.

Harriet Klausner

Just take a look at the titles and you will see what I mean. The Cistern From Hell, the Strange Transformation of Danny Conners, The Ouija Crayon, Bobby's Perfect Murder, Horrifying Screams, The Murdering Mimic, Interview with a Serial Killer, The Strangest Drug Bust, My Most Enjoyable Paranormal Experiences, Fat Legs Saved My Life, The Laughing Guru, The Blind Woman's Secret, The Hesitant Psychic, The Folksinger, The Reunion, and the Night They Came for Ida.

Arrived as described, book is great will def help me in my career choice. Def would do business again!

The information in this book blew me away! As an Amnesty International activist I have known about the hundreds of unsolved murders in Jaurez for a few years now and I have been under the impression that no one knew what was behind the femicides. This book makes it perfectly clear that powerful people on both sides of the border know what's going on and that many of those power brokers south of the border are directly responsible!

This book is especially commendable because of the attention and honor it pays to the families of the victims and the toll all of the trauma has taken on citizens of the border region.

A simplified version of this book's explanation of the Juaurez femicides is that the Columbian drug cartel forged an agreement with some of the most powerful people in Mexico that in exchange for money the Mexicans would grant the cartel and its allies total impunity in the state of Chihuahua. This grim agreement gave the power to kill kidnap, and torture to a mix of sadists, misogynists, serial killers and multi-millionaires.

The cartel recruited many of its operatives from the Mexican army when the Cold War ended which brings up another important point in this book... these operatives were trained to kidnap, torture, and kill leftists and other political dissidents and had no use for these awful skills when the Cold War ended (and with it Mexico's "Dirty War" against political dissidents). This made them ripe for recruitment by the cartels for whom they applied all of the same twisted techniques of their trade (like throwing people out of airplanes!)

The book also notes that the government was easily corrupted by the cartel largely because Mexico's political and justice institutions were so badly weakened by three decades of the Dirty War. This Dirty War was covertly encouraged and supported by the USA as part of it's Cold War strategy. It's a horrifying example of what the intelligence community refers to as 'blowback'.

The amount and specificity of information make this the best single source of information on this issue that I've encountered. Valdez names names and cites her sources to the extent that is possible. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to begin to understand this issue and especially to journalists, human rights activists and researchers who are working on this issue.

This book isn't for everyone. I contains graphic descriptions of victims horrific acts of violence. This is not done gratuitously as the victims' bodies have given forensics experts important clues that Valdez uses to unravel some of the mysteries. And some people might not take to the journalistic writing style of Valdez, a journalist for the El Paso Times, because it doesn't always flow the way a good novelist might tell a story. Some times information is thrown in for factual completeness that kind of breaks the rhythm of the narrative. for that reason I recommend this more for a person who wants to learn about the Jaurez femicides than for someone looking for an entertaining story.

"Mantis" by Richard La Plante is aptly named. The serial killer in this top notch mystery/thriller is an out of control martial artist that uses his pure mantis style martial arts to maim and then to sexually deposit his human "half" in the bodies of his victims before killing them.

This is the first of the Joey Tanaka/Bill Fogerty novels novels by La Plante, and in my opinion the best. What makes this novel particularly interesting (besides the obvious serial killer/martial arts hook) is that the three main characters (Tanaka, Fogerty and the Mantis) are all deeply scarred, damaged human beings. Josef Tanaka, half Japanese, half American coroner is tortured by the fact that he was directly responsible for the crippling of his older brother in the All Japan Karate Tournament. Detective Bill Fogerty's wife and daughter were killed in a firey car wreck...one the detective feels responsible for. Fogerty himself was burned on one side of his face and wears his scars as a sign of his guilt. The "Mantis" was the product of an upbringing in which he was humiliated and sexually tortured; leaving him emotionally and physically scarred. Each man attempts to find his way past their own suffering: Tanaka and Fogerty in the service of justice and the Mantis in the service of death as a way to transcend the humanity that he hates so much.

"Mantis" is a tightly knit thriller that fans of "Silence of the Lambs" will find satisfying and enjoyable. It's also a great character study detailing the lives of three men and their seperate responses to the pain and tragedy in their lives.

As an undergraduate, I had spent a lot of time in libraries searching indexes for individual books, journal articles, and other periodicals! One day in a used book store, I found a copy of this book. What a find! Not only did it include a bibliography of individual murderers but also other resources from psychology and criminology. Anyone who is able to get a copy will find it very valuable! I can only hope that Michael Newton will put together a newer version in the near future.