Serial Murder Books

I enjoyed the insight on how Ted Bundy thinks and how manipulative he could be. On a more personal level, some of the things he said are eerily similar to the way I operate. For example, when he said he used to fantasize about having an endless supply of socks and underwear so he never had to worry about a clean pair being available. I impulsively buy a new pack of each every two or three months, long before I've had to throw any out. I could go a month or more without washing laundry and never run out of clean socks or underwear. Many times throughout the book, I found myself thinking, had I been the right age, at the right time, in the right place, I would have gotten along with Ted, and wondered if I'd have made a suitable victim, although he probably wouldn't have "gone there" with someone who was a true friend.

Similarities aside, I was more interested in the details of the crimes, the investigation, trial, and sentencing. In that respect, this book was not what I had hoped for or expected. Any time the interviewers got too close to the topic at hand, Ted would veer in the other direction. At times it got so painfully slow and repetitive, I found myself skipping entire paragraphs, then going back to re-read just in case I missed something interesting or important.

If all you're interested in is Ted Bundy: The Man, this is a great book with plenty to offer, although according to one reviewer, it's nothing new. I wouldn't know, as this is the first book on Bundy that I've read. It just wasn't what I was looking for, and I guess I shouldn't hold that against it.

I found this little number in my local used bookstore. Having been fascinated with Ted Bundy over the last couple of years but yet to read anything in depth about him, I bought it, hoping to learn something new.

Unfortunately, "Conversations With A Killer"'s biggest flaw is Bundy himself. I feel really bad for Michaud and Aynesworth; they honestly try to write a ground-breaking book about the case, and Bundy promises them before the interviews that he will reveal to them "the truth about everything." How could any print journalist say no? Rather than embarking on the horizon of a new look at Ted Bundy, however, the duo are instead treated to interview after interview of Bundy whipping them around this way and that, never once giving them the kind of information they need.

After initially being asked point-blank about his whereabouts during the crimes he is committed of and clamming up immediately, Bundy is instead offered the ability to speak of these crimes in the third-person, freeing him from self-incrimination. Instead of offering any new outlooks, however, Bundy dances about, choosing to "speculate" about the killer's mental workings and treating us to paragraph after paragraph of half-baked, psycho-analytical noodlings. I'm surprised Michaud and Aynesworth didn't fall asleep while interviewing him; when Bundy's not pumping his side of the testimony full of mostly-nonsensical, winding explanations of the "killer's" mindset, he chooses to be very vague about his choice of words, offering a lot of "could be" and "might have been that, also might have been this" and "I don't know". And, of course, he denies absolutely everything about his involvement in these crimes, standing infuriatingly adamant about his innocence all the while. Michaud and Ayneworth ask him numerous times about his whereabouts during crimes or about the testimony of witnesses, and Bundy is rarely ever able to give them an answer, either sidestepping the question and weaseling his way into another subject, or simply refusing to answer at all.

The book does have a few positive marks, as few as they are. The first few chapters of the book do offer a decent, albiet selective, history of Bundy from youth to the (then) present, revealing an education in words passed on by his mother, crippling shyness during high school, and his strange fetish with socks. Also detailed are his struggles with bi-polar disorder, using his escape from jail in Glenwood Springs as a compelling example. Lastly, one can glimpse some truths behind Bundy's words, including the dangerous influences that both "stress" and pornography had on his transformation into a serial killer. However, while these are great tidbits for a newcomer to Bundy's persona, they're not nearly enough to provide one with a fulfilling look at the man and his life & doings.

As for Michaud and Aynesworth, they humble Bundy at the beginning and are eager to try new approaches, but as the book is chronological, it is easy to grasp their growing impatience with Ted's mind games. Aynesworth gets especially agitated, and his multiple outbursts of anger at Bundy (only to be met with smiles, jokes, denial, irritation, and sidestepping on Bundy's end) are by far the most interesting parts of the book. And that's got to be a sad statement: that the anger of one of the authors at the subject of the book is ultimately more interesting than the sum of the book's parts.

I can't really recommend it. Only those truly interested in Ted Bundy or the way his mind works could grasp much enjoyment out of it. Much of the book will just bore you to tears. An interesting first look at Bundy, it proved to be a vastly unfulfilling one for me, and I hope that Ann Rule's "The Stranger Beside Me" will prove to be much better. Good luck next time, Steve and Hugh.

Pages and pages of verbatim interviews with a megalomaniac, even one as twisted as Ted Bundy, get dull after a while. It would be a necessary reference book for anybody writing a doctoral thesis on Bundy or the psychopathic mind, but really holds little interest for the average reader.

First, I want to say that I love Ted Bundy and reading anything about him. That's why this book got 3 stars instead of maybe 1 or 2. From everything else I've read about him, this is nothing new. And the way it's presented is so BORING. You can see how manipulative Ted is in his monologues which are often verbose. A lot of times he doesn't make much sense.

If you've read a lot about Ted Bundy, I wouldn't recommend this book. The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule is a much better book. I guess if it's your first time reading about him, it might be interesting.

Ted Bundy murdered over 30 women in the late 70's and has a kind of cult status among people who are obsessed with serial killers and voilence, which is not why I read this book. I read this book because I was hoping it would shed light on a problem which seems to be a product of modern American society.
The First half of this book is very interesting. Ted creates a hypothetical psychological model of a killer and in the third person describes how this person developed from a regular guy with deep emotion issues into a full fledged mass murder. That part of the book is very frightening and thought provoking. Ted describes the killer's initial fascination with alcohol and violent pornography. From there he describes the slow progress of the killer instict: how his trips to the pornographic book stores became more frequent and urgent, how he spent a year spying in women's house before almost attacking a woman one night, followed months later by an actual attack, then a rape and killing.He also describes the killer's remorse between killings and his frequent promises that this would be the last one.
Toward the middle of the book it gets pretty boring. The second interviewer takes over and keeps trying to get Ted to admit his guilt, which he won't do. Most of the answers in this half of the book are evasive and tiringly repetitive.
It is redeemed in the last interview in which Ted makes some rather interesting statements about how it is our society which creates the serial killer. He also talks about how this a problem which manifests itself rather early in the life of these sick men,and what's even more frightening, he states that for every man arrested for multiple homicide there are five or six more that are not caught. With a little money, Ted states, a man can kill indiscriminately for the rest of his life without fear of detection. This book is a must read for anyone interested in Abnormal Psychology.

I picked this up at an airport bookstore, browsed through it and though: "Wow! A James Ellroy noir atmosphere in post-WWII Japan - this MUST be the best of both worlds!" Well, it turn out to be more of a disappointment than not...

The prose is a collection of tiresome staccato repetitions. That is not style.
The obsession with bodily functions, sounds and endless fidgeting is insatiable. This is not insightful realism.
The story is not overly original. It does not save the day.

I never abandon a book once started but I have to confess: I was really tempted with this one...

Like any mystery or thriller, the story basically is about a murderer and how he/she was caught. But what sets this story above others is the noir like background of how the Japanese reacted to their defeat at the end of World War 2. More than anything, the surrender of the Japanese shattered a culture based on the 'living God/Emperor' and the forced introduction of democracy and free trade.

The narrator, is a police officer who served in the Japanese Army in China and came back to Japan during the last year of the war. He speaks of the 'May Bombing' of Tokyo that led to a firestorm like the one in Hamburg and Dresden. More people died in the Tokyo firestorm than died in Hiroshima or Nagasaki. But before the 'Bombs' the Japanese were planning on fighting the Americans on the home islands the same way they had fought in Okinawa.

On August 15, 1945, the Emperor Hirohito spoke to his people over the radio for the first time. From then on everything was different. Peace has done a fabulous job of communicating the environmental and sociological changes that Japan was going through in the first year after the surrender.

The "Year Zero" in Japan is 1946, the first year of defeat, of the Allied occupation, of the "Emperor MacArthur." It's a year of disease and near starvation, of ragged clothing and war crimes trials, of false identities and political purges, of gang warfare and the constant sound of hammering. Most of all, it's a year of lies and secrets. Many of the upper ranks of the civilian police have been dismissed for their political affiliations and solving "ordinary" murders in a country with several million unidentified dead has become nearly impossible. But that's Detective Inspector Minami's job, as far as he can manage it. The story -- the visible one -- involves a series of similar sex-murders and the complex investigation into the identities of the often skeletal remains and the search for evidence to convict the suspected killer, all of which is made more difficult by the secrets in the lives of nearly all the principle characters, on both sides of the law. And it's those secrets that make up the real story. Minami, as we gradually discover, has a secret involving the Japanese military police in the brutal occupation of China. His boss has his own secret regarding a cover-up, and his subordinate detectives have yet more secrets. Minami also has the head of the local gang on his back, and he's probably responsible for the murder of a journalist, and perhaps for the murder of another detective. It's a dark plot in a dark world, filled with people living dark lives, and in most respects Peace succeeds quite well. My only real complaint is with his attempt at a self-consciously "literary" style, in which he frequently repeats the same sentence fragments over and over (and over and over), and in which the same phrases (apparently the product of Minami's damaged psyche) crop up again and again, and always in italics. An unadorned, straightforward writing style would have been more successful and less obtrusive in communicating the despair and the horror of the time and place. The story and the raw emotional milieu in which it is set would have been sufficient to convey the feelings Peace obviously wants the reader to share -- and the book would have been probably fifty pages shorter. But if you *bleep* over that part of the story, it's a pretty good book.

I found the story compelling despite the author's extremely annoying stylistic tics (turn to page 176 for a perfect example) but about halfway through I realized that I been conned into crawling across a bed of sharp rusty nails. So does the author force the reader to experience for himself/herself the horrors of postwar Japan, year zero. This approach has validity -- want to look through the knothole? well, go ahead, hypocrite lecteur... and get a finger poked into your eye. By all means read it if that's your sort of thing, but be aware that this is crime fiction as a means, not an end, and when you put the book down, you'll find a vulture has eaten your liver.

Peace has a very distinctive style, and depending on your tastes, that's either a very good thing or utterly annoying. I found the internal monologue jarring. You might like Peace's style.

My suggestion for anyone who thinks (from other reviews) that this sounds like a great novel is to pick up a copy at your local bookstore or library, read about 15 - 20 pages, and then decide if it's worth purchasing (or read the excerpt here on Amazon). I was very disappointed.

And BTW, if you are fascinated with this novel's setting and subject matter, I recommend that you check out Akimitsu Takagi's classic Japanese crime novel, The Tattoo Murder Case. It was originally published in the late 1940s, was a big bestseller in Japan and covers much of the territory in Tokyo Year Zero.

This book reads like a crime novel. Unfortunately, it's a true story about the worst serial killer in American history.
The Prologue was an almost "folksy" introduction to David Reichert,the man who would spend 20 years working on the Green River serial killings.

Mr.Reichert details some of the problems with the investigation from media involvement to the class of the victims. He makes the distinction between Ted Bundy's victims who were college girls and the Green River victims who were prostititutes,some in their teens. He does a good job of emphasizing the fact these victims were no less human and were missed by loved ones. They were often dificult to trace and sometimes identification was not easy.
Another problem the task force dealt with over time was financing. A long investigation was not cheap and there was the perception that the killer had stopped or moved when the discovery of corpses declined temporarily.
This aided the decision to cut back on staffing.

Another interesting factor was technology. Over the life of this investigation DNA testing and computer technology "came of age" and were instrumental in eventually solving the case.
Where these tools helped,the polygraph didn't. Ridgway passed multiple polygraph tests.

The tough decision for the County Prosecutor was his decision to ultimately abandon the pursuit of the death penalty in exchange for more details and locations of more victims.

Some of the things that this book highlights are the dogged dedication of David Reichert to bring the killer to justice and the heavy toll it took on the team. The strain that the investigation put on Reichert and his family isn't something you would normally think about.
If you want to read a book about the Green River killings,I highly recommend this book

I really enjoyed this book. I found the writing easy to read and it flowed well. There were parts that did not needed to be included in the book. At times I think the author felt he had to explain his situation in times it was convenient for him. I felt it was an unnecessary addition to the true story.
In the end, I would read this book again!

I've read a lot about the Green River case, and almost every recounting, aside from this one, paints Reichert as as much a part of the problem as the solution in this protracted case. His early mistakes, and his myopic fascination with suspect Melvyn Foster are often credited with confounding the search for the real killer. Reichert, while obviously passionate about the case, seems to get caught up in his own political aspirations at the expense of his objectivity about the case. And for him to take so much credit for apprehending Ridgway -- 14 years after he'd gone off the case -- seems like a calculated attempt to curry favor with potential voters. I guess it worked -- he got elected -- but to me he comes off as overly ambitious and more than a little closed minded.

I am absolutely fascinated by the fact that so many people have been captivated by this book. This book was simply a campaign ploy for Reichert to elevate himself into congress. The timing of the book came as he was running for congress and allowed him to make tons of TV appearances that aided his campaign. The book is as much fiction as it is a true account. The purpose of the book was to portray an image of a man who was running for congress. Reichert was never the head of the task force, and he was only on the task force for nine years, not twenty! The man whom his peers call selfish and unable to give credit to others, exemplifies this in this incredible book. He did have a ghost writer and even fails to mention that as he once again takes all the credit himself. I wish he was at least honest and admit that he never believed Ridgeway was the killer because he passed a polygraph test and instead always pinned his hopes on an innocent man Melvyn Foster.... nice work Congressman Reichert

I read CHASING THE DEVIL with great interest, after reading the book by Carlton Smith and Tomas Guillen, the two reporters from the Seattle Times who spent many years covering the case for the newspaper. I wanted to read Reichert's book to get a law enforcement official's perspective on the search for this elusive madman who was killing young girls in Seattle, WA. Many of these girls were runaways with drug and alcohol problems, and many had probably suffered sexual abuse and had left home to escape a traumatic situation, only to encounter brutality on the streets.

Reichert is the antithesis of the killer. He is a straightforward, law-abiding citizen with deep religious beliefs and roots. His grandfather was a minister and he himself had considered going into the ministry while he was a student at a Lutheran college. However, he chose law enforcement instead, and clearly it was a good choice. His belief that the killer had to be hunted down and found, regardless of cost or anything else, shows that Reichert is a man of strong conviction. Reichert's personality comes out clearly in the book. He has great respect for humanity and believed that the murders of these girls had to be avenged. His facial expression in the photo where Ridgway appears in court in 2001 shows that the murders greatly affected him.

I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about how law enforcement officials have to operate, in real-world scenarios, unlike on TV, where murder investigations cannot be wrapped up in just one hour. I felt CHASING THE DEVIL was an apt title for the book, as Ridgway clearly is one.

This is a remarkable, fun, scary forensics forray and a forray into the madness not only of one maniac but many, and the madness of our law enforcement systems, especially the prison system which allows a crazoid like Manson to deliver his rantings on his website to potentially "poison" young minds. This is cutting edge stuff and recalls to mind themes Walker wrote about in his first Edge book, Cutting Edge, in which it is noted anyone with a PC or a Mac today can and does often set him or herself up as a demi-god or a conduit from God. Walker always deals with complex issues, and perhaps this is why his readers are so loyal to him. They know with each of his books they will get into meaty issues, and this is no soap opera as with so many other forensics titles that fall far more into the category of romance or as i said soap opera. I liken Walker's books to a TV drama that you CAN'T sleep or blink through or step away to make a sandwich, or drop the ball, because everything in the drama matters. There are surprises on every page. There is action on every page. As for the person calling herself traffic cop...for a traffic cop to be telling Mr. Walker he does not know anything about forensics, well that is crazy, isn't it?? Suffice to say that this book is a TEN. And don't miss FleshWar, and Mr. Walker's Geoffrey Caine novels on Fiction Wise now, and the return of the Chicago ME Dean Grant on Fiction Wise as well. But most of all don't miss his City for Ransom.

Grave Instinct is a huge roller-coaster ride from start to finish. It begins at lightning speed and just gets faster from there. Those who can't follow Walker's complex sentences need to go back to school. His style is similar to Martin Cruz Smith -- Gorky Park. He's closer to Faulkner than to Hemmingway. So you don't find a lotta easy sentences and you can't go out for a snack until the scene is finished, but the payoff is amazing. My favorite author and I can't wait to jump into his Absolute Instinct and his new series City for Ransom.

The story was typically spun with Walker's usual aplomb and finess. The characters progresses futher along that usual and you are left to wonder whether Jessica really is, after all this time, going to give it up. I hope not. But Walker may be tiring of the character for a while at least. I have all the books of the series and have read them more than once. This tale is one of my favorites>

I agree with all of the previous negative comments, and I won't repeat points they made.

I have never read this author before, but picked up this book at the library based on numerous plaudits on the (paperback) book. Based on this one, I won't bother to read any others. I don't write many reviews, but I was moved to write this one just to warn others away.

First, I will say that the basic premise of the book was intriguing and sufficiently interesting that I read it completely through. Maybe my frustration comes from the fact that the story development was handled SO poorly. (It coulda been a contender)

The book is riddled with
-- errors, like "Angora" [not Angola ??] Prison, "Pittsburgh Pennsylvania University" [not the University of Pittsburgh] Steps leading to a house are made out of cypress-- when a few pages earlier, they were made of cedar. Supposedly the bobbing movement of the room shown on a video help the good guys to figure out that it is on a boat. But the camera and room are fixed in position on the same boat, so there would be NO apparent movement in the video.
--and--
-- hackneyed or unrealistic plot devices Split personality is a very rare condition used far too often in fiction, so perhaps I shouldn't complain. But, eating fresh brains is so compelling that even police pick up the habit quickly ?? We're told that a hurricane is hitting to the south, close enough that local helicopters have been sent down for rescue work. But around here, the air and water are so calm that the fog is inpenetrable ?

I don't understand why there are so many unconnected vignettes of unknown people reading mostly technical material about brain anatomy on web sites. It comes across to me as if some research assistant had taken the trouble to copy that technical information down, and the author had to fit it in SOMEWHERE.

Enough. I fear that I have already devoted more brain energy to this book than it deserves.

I eagerly awaited the release of this in paper back having read all previous Instinct books! The previous books were so well researched, Jessica was smart, savy and knew her proceedure inside out. Nothing slipped past her and she outsmarted everyone!

This book she is like a rookie patrolman. It's like someone else wrote this book and just filled it with shock value murder scenes.

Oh Mr. Walker, this is such a disappointment!

This is a new author for me, This book is her debut novel. It is about missing nannies in a close knit Philadelphia neighborhood. One of the neighbors is possibly a serial killer. The main character, Zoe, an "art therapist" gets involved when her (adopted) 5 year old daughter, Molly, makes a disturbing discovery. She soon teams up with a police detective named Nick, who has some mystery himself. The author is a little bit like Mary Higgins Clark. This book has a lot of twists and turns before the surprise ending. I read the book in just a few hours, which would make it perfect for a plane, beach or poolside. I am looking forward to reading more by Merry Jones.

This was a great book, in my opinion. Once I started I COULD NOT put it down.....A very good page turner....

Story line was very well put together, and an excellent read.

I should of listened to the reviews but the title sounded good so I bought it anyway to see for myself.I am on page 298 and it ends at 328. I can tell you the outcome.I have not read about a nanny really being mentioned except in passing for over 200 pages. Nanny's have hardly been mentioned through most of the book.Where are the nanny's? When do we get to know them? Aren't they important to the story here? I am mad at this point at wasting my money.I consider myself a good judge of books. I have read everything written by James Patterson,Wendi Corsi Staub,Jonathan Kellerman,Patricia Cornwell ,Karen Harper,John Saul,Mary Higgins Clark Nora Roberts Harlen Coben Dean Koontz,Laura Lippman,Erica Spindler,Ann Rule, and many more so I think I have a good idea of a good book. I love to read,I live to read and I have not been able to finish almost two books in my entire life. The first was a totally sick religious book and the second could be this one.I will finish it just because I like to finish what I start. I am skimming over it and hurrying just to get it over with. Please don't waste yor money or you will probably be mad too. If you must read it,borrow it or maybe the library has it.Sorry,I just can't give it a good review, it is awful. I can't believe it got printed. I should try my hand at writing a book. It just goes to show anyone can write one and get it printed,somehow.???????????????????? The million dollar dollar question for the rest of us is HOW????????????

I am so glad that I didn't listen to the bad reviews on here. After I looked up this book, I almost didn't read it. I am so glad I did because it was very good. I found it hard to put down. In fact, I am going to go to the library and get the next book in the series "The River Killings". Hope there are more of these books to come.

Well written for about the first half, this book takes a turn for the worse and loses its style. I felt like the author ran out of time on her editing.

I feel cheated. I spent quite a few days reading this bit of useless nonsense. It started off okay with considerable accuracy regarding Conan Doyle and Houdini. But that all faded pretty quickly.

For the most part, it was just a pastiche of '20s popular history with this personage or that being either mentioned or showing up.

An ongoing appearance of the "ghost" of Poe never got resolved. "Scooby Doo" cartoons manage to do a much better job of tying up loose phantasmic threads.

The ending scene refers to the Poe story "The Oblong Box." I went back to the text of that tale to try to make sense out of the rectangular basket that Conan Doyle, at Houdini's request, throws into the Atlantic. It didn't work for me. If anyone has a comment that can clarify, I'd be happy to see it.

This book is utter tripe so I don't feel bad about the spoilers in the last couple of paragraphs. If you run into a cheap copy at the local thrift store, leave it there. Even at 50 cents, "Nevermore" is a total rip.

Hjortsberg has created an interesting recipe for his novel. The characters of Harry Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle are the main ingredients. Throw in a farm girl who thinks she's the reincarnation of Isis. Set the story in 1923 New York City and have the characters cross paths with Damon Runyon, W. C. Fields, Fanny Brice, and other notables of the jazz age. Spice these ingredients with Houdini's amazing illusions and Doyle's belief in the occult. Add a few pinches of romance. Stir up the mixture with a killer inspired by the stories of Poe.

One has to suspend belief to enjoy this concoction, but once the reader can do that, s/he will discover that Hjortsberg has managed to combine these improbable elements into a fun mystery.

It won't take much for the avid mystery fan to figure out whodunit, but that won't dim the enjoyment of being pulled into the age of crystal sets, speakeasies, flappers, and vaudeville. And, of course we know the killer will have to be hideously clever to outwit both Houdini and the creator of Sherlock Holmes.

NEVERMORE is like Houdini's magic ---only an illusion.

Houdini and Conan Doyle are two of my favorite people from history. This story was fun and enjoyable. It reminded me of "The Alienist" quite a bit, too. It is fun stuff--spritualism, magic, illusion, detective work...all
happening during a great time in history.

William Hjortsberg's "Nevermore" brings together Harry Houdini, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a serial killer emulating Edgar Allan Poe's stories, and a host of real characters from the 1920s. Sherlock Holmes's creator is in the United States delivering a series of lectures on spiritism, and Houdini is playing his usual role as a skeptic. The two inevitably run into each other time and time again, and they form a friendship, one that is tried to some degree by their different philosophies. While they are going about their businesses, a killer is dispatching victims in ways that are taken from Poe tales. And at the same time, a woman calling herself Isis is performing supernatural feats that Houdini cannot explain away.

If the story sounds busy, that's because it is. The various threads seem to coexist without mingling for quite some time. In fact, the serial killer all but disappears for a substantial portion of the second half of the novel. With the standard suspense aspect thusly diminished, the novel becomes more of a combination of a period piece and an exploration into the two men's obsession with supernatural phenomena. The historical aspect of the mystery often works well, though Hjortsberg does seem to revel a bit much in the minutiae of the period, from cigarette brands to characters. The supernatural aspect does not work, as Houdini is clearly the loser; there is never really any doubt but that spirits exist and influence the world. Also, it should be noted that Houdini's character, while heroic, is also decidedly unflattering, especially in his dealings with Isis.

"Nevermore" begins with a great deal of promise but ultimately fails to fulfill that promise as the threads never mesh entirely satisfactorily. While Hjortsberg writes well for the most part, he never truly unites the several threads, and a few of them are left dangling.

The story went very slow at first and it's really for us busy readers to hold on as it's really hard to get the story line at first. That's why the first half of the story is so boring. But then if you go on reading it, the first half isn't wasted at all and they are all well-planned. Well, but it goes so slow..

I find this book an incredible model of premier investigative reporting. How Dennis can write so well without personally knowing his subject I'll never know. I enjoy a well-written novel also, but combining these existing facts with well-crafted writing is genius. This book informs whatever the reader may have heard or read before, bringing to life an individual's aberrent world. The author's comprehension of the antisocial mind is brilliant.

Dennis McDougal has not done his homework on this one. This book came out too soon, and all the facts were not known at that time.

I used to live 2 doors down from the Stayner family when they lived in Atwater, California. WOW. Del and Kay were very nice people, pretty much kept to themselves. I lived there when Steven was killed, it was SO SAD.
I found the book to be quite interesting since I lived in that area. It is just too crazy to me that someone could commit such horrific crimes. My heart goes out to the victims, their families, and Cary's family. Senseless murder is just something I will never understand. I don't normally read crime stories, but read this one because of who it was about...... I will be following the trial in the newspaper.

McDougal digs deep into the heart with his descriptions of the gruesome murders. The beginning of the book fools you into thinking that McDougal will keep descriptions light, while covering all the necessities. However, as you read farther you find insignificant details. While some may find it helpful to know the full background of Cary Stayner's childhood, I failed to make a connection between what the kidnapping of his younger brother had to do with the murders the elder Stayner child committed. It seems as though each time McDougal introduced a new character, an in depth background was required. I feel as though the writer was merely trying to make his book appear longer by adding pointless details. The details did come in handy, however, when he described the murders. Over all I enjoyed the book, but found it tedious. I found myself skipping parts of each characters background in an effort to find the "good" part of the book. I doubt I will choose to read another True Crime book by Mr. McDougal.

While This Book Is well wrote,I feel that it consentrated more on the the FBI,and inside the lives of each victim rather then the actual murders themselves.probably 4 chapters out of the entire book focused on cary stayner and the yosemite murders.The rest of it is full of eulogies and talks about the victims families. It just did'nt focus on the crime enough for me.Not exactly a good read if your looking on the subject at hand.

The bulk of this book was filled with tedious details that added nothing of substance to the book. Decent potential, but apparantly there was not a moment of editorial oversight offered. The conclusion was as unsatisfying as everything that preceeded it. I have not read anything else in this series and am not inclined to do so now.

I am shocked by the critical reviews. I really liked this book. It's my first by this author but won't be the last. She tells a good story.

The sense of place (New Orleans) in this book was wonderful but made me a bit sad because I don't think that place will ever exist again as it was when she was writing. The story begins with a body being found -- a woman who recently moved to New Orleans from a smaller community, who didn't seem to have much of a life, so it's hard to figure out who she would have allowed into her apartment.

Then a second body is found, and someone comes forward to say that both these people were seen at a meeting of a 12 step group. Thus Skip Langdon, 6 foot tall homicide detective (female) has a clue, which is particularly important in that it soon becomes apparent that these murders are the work of a serial killer. She and her task force start attending meetings, getting to know the people who frequent these -- with the assumption that this is how the killer meets his victims, so he must be a regular 12 stepper.

The descriptions of some of the troubled attendees, many of whom attend several meetings a day every day, may make some 12 steppers squirm, but I was fascinated by what she described so astutely. The 12 step groups in question were not for substance abusers but for people who were unhappy and looking for a way to change their lives: in one group, people are trying to care for their inner child, so attendees hold dolls or teddy bears that represent their inner child. Some of the people described are quite likeable and relatively normal despite their problems, whereas others are so obviously angry and troubled that they are serious contenders for a possible serial killer.

I didn't have too much trouble figuring out who the killer was, but that didn't detract from my enjoyment of the book. I did find a couple of pages toward the end so distressing that I more or less skipped them.

I'm sorry that other readers did not enjoy this book, but personally, I thought it was a real page-turner.

I have read all of Julie Smith books and for an easy and fun read they are good. I especially like the Skip Langdon series as she is not a femme fatale and has her fits and faults, which make her more human like the rest of us.

I don't know how this book was ever published. Two murders at the beginning of the story followed by a couple of hundred pages of inane dialog, limited action and uninteresting characters. I was not engaged by the story at all. I simply wanted to get to the end and be done with this awful book.

Cheez, it went on and on. Someone said it earlier...the Edgar has given Smith the "clout" to pour out bad writing.
If you just like to skip through a book til you find the (unbelievably implausible) culprit, you might like it. The 12-step theme and Skip Langdon are the only reasons to even pick it up with two fingers...but the writing is drawn out, repetitive, unimaginative, choppy - hell, if this were a senior high school thesis I'd send it back for revisions!

Julie Smith should know better. We all had such high hopes with New Orleans Mourning. She should have stopped there, written a totally different kind of book. She has the potential of an artist...how far she has strayed. They should have made a movie of New Orleans Mourning so she could "retire" gracefully with stacks of money and not have to turn out detective stories over and over. Believe me, she's not good at it. She's not a James Lee Burke or Moseley or Sandford or Block. These writers can keep it going for some reason. How disappointing. Skip is a great character, but characters are only as good as the writing that surrounds them, and I'm afraid that, without a movie, Skip will be so much molasses in a few years.

A frightening book from a talented author, this one follows Det. Paris Murphy following her instincts on a man who continues to help police with a series of murders, and she starts to suspect he may be the killer. I highly recommend this author and look forward to reading more of her books.

I bought this bk. since I saw it had 4 stars for the overall rating..... Well, I was not as impressed as the other readers.

1st off the writing is choppy or something. To many small details. I don't know how many times I read "Chewed & swallowed." It was ridiculous! I didn't care for the main character (Paris) at all & was hoping the bad guy would run her over too. Mighta been better if there was at least some mystery.

Anyway, there are far better suspense novels out there to read. If you really want to read it, I suggest going to a library.

If you're a fan of authors like Connelly or Crais, steer clear! In fact, Ms. Monsour is not even in the class of Sandford or Pearson. "Cold Blood" is more like a cheasy romance novel with a dumb crime element that doesn't even allow the reader to guess whodunit.

Not one character is likable, including (especially) the protagonist, who is a selfish, adultering woman who is also an incredibly lousy cop. Paris' estranged husband and boyfriend are both louts. More sympathy is generated for the evil villain, whose poor childhood at least gives him an excuse.

The biggest problem is how the novel insults the reader's intelligence. Justice finds the missing woman's finger and not one cop suspects him? Justice offs two people and needs to blow town ASAP but stows the bodies in his truck and shows up to his class reunion, where he knows cops will be hanging out?

Thankfully I did not read the first book in the series, and I will read no others. There are way too many choices out there if you're looking for a creepy crime book. I suggest starting with John Connolly and avoiding this trash.

The story started off okay, but as it went on it got boring. Once again, another author who puts in too many small details. Paris came across as a weak, unable to make up her mind and a so-so police officer. It seems to me throughout the the book all she did was whine and feel sorry for herself and fall for every man within a few feet of her. I found the character of Paris to be a tramp and whiner, not a cop doing her job.

When bridesmaid Bunny Pederson vanishes after a friend's wedding, a search is mounted in the community of Moose Lake, Minnesota. Justice Trip, a traveling salesman & "concerned citizen," volunteers to be a member of the search party and finds the woman's finger...just the severed finger not the entire body. Yuck! He is rewarded for his efforts by mega-publicity and lauded as the community hero. Don't ask me why...he only found a finger.

Paris Murphy, a Twin Cities Police Department detective, sees news coverage of the event on TV and remembers Trip from high school. Back then he was a social misfit who had a crush on her. Paris' jock boyfriend & three of his buddies gave the loner, nicknamed "Sweet Justice," a bad beating for his misplaced affections. Ominously, the victim's motto was and is, "What goes around comes around!" All four boys died in a terrible car crash before graduation.

Paris gets the creeps after watching "Sweet" on the small screen and reminisces about her strange former classmate. He still looks weird to her after all these years so she goes out to Moose Lake to investigate. And man (!!) does she find trouble!

This is Detective Murphy's second appearance in a Theresa Monsour police procedural. My introduction to this intelligent, feisty, part Irish, part Lebanese law officer was in "Dark House," the third book in the series. Paris is a more complex character than most female protagonists in this genre. There is more to her than the same old "tough but vulnerable" facade.

Not only am I taken with this three-dimensional take charge lady, I also like her husband, (although the marriage is floundering), her family, colleagues, boss and problematic love life. The dialogue is realistic, the plot is gritty, fast paced, dark and very creepy. Ms. Monsour, an award-winning journalist for a St. Paul newspaper, gives us a vivid look inside the head of a totally wacko individual, a serial killer - and the view is chilling. The writing is quite good! What's not to like??
JANA

This very long and incredibly detailed collection of Scotland Yard files, newspaper reports, witness statements, etc on Jack the Ripper is incredibly fascinating, no doubt, to those with some knowledge of the case who've read at least some of the books and are knowledgeable enough to be able to really appreciate and understand this plethora of rare information about the case. However, for those new to this case, I would highly recommend the Philip Sugden book, "The Complete History of Jack the Ripper", which is considered to be the best written account of the Ripper killings, and I believe it's the best starting point. "The Ultimate Jack the Ripper Companion", on the other hand, is one of those books for more advanced Ripper buffs for whom the countless facts in it are both invaluable and digestible thanks to the more fundamental knowledge they've already gained from other Ripper books.

David Rehak
author of "A Young Girl's Crimes"

This is a very good book, especially for the person who wants to cut through all the theories and misperceptions that've cropped up over the years and take a glance at what the police had to deal with. It's all the original info, no more, no less, and reading it, you'll find that it's no surprise the police didn't solve the case. Witness testimony gives a window into the general apathy among the people at the time, most of whom didn't care that they very likely heard the murder being committed. Then you realize that inner cities haven't changed all that much.

There's some good rarities in it that I haven't seen before, including crimescene sketches of Eddowes' corpse and the rarely-seen "back shot" of Mary Kelly (the untouched hand seen here is somehow extremely disturbing, given the surroundings).

Teaser - pay attention to the name Catherine Eddowes gave when she was booked in her pre-murder arrest...

I can't say whether a full-time "Ripperologist" or long-term Jack the Ripper buff/fanatic will learn anything new in this book. Because I have a passing curiosity but no extensive knowledge in the case. I read a paperback when I was growing up with the basic facts of the case and I just read Patricia Cornwell's book also. I have been searching for supplemental material on the case.

This book is worth buying for those who want to look at the basic material for themselves. For instance, I found the transcript of the inquests very interesting. You get a sense of the scene as it must have been at the time: There is a sketch of Mary Kelly's body being removed by the city and the crowd gathered around; there are photos of the victims which can be seen in other books, but I haven't seen photos of the doorways and such before. Or cartoons from the time such as the man who was repairing (cutting) his boot about a foot from where a body was found a short time later. The drawing gives a great sense of just how close he was actually sitting. Therefore one needs to keep in mind the stygian darkness of those Whitechapel streets. This is how Jack the Ripper may have gone undetected just before and after his crimes.

It also contains letters from police to each other during the investigation, which gives a sense of the urgency they felt to catch the killer and a sense of how things operated back then. Even a sketch of the morgue shed used to examine some of the Ripper victims. Also interesting were the quotes from letters from Queen Victoria stressing the importance to catch the killer -- and her suggestions on things to explore along those lines ! Also, some of the killer profiles drawn up by detectives were amazingly canny. Some books would give the impression the police of the time were bumbling and real profiling was years away; but one profile in this book seemed exactly what a modern profiler might write as to what type of person did the crime.

I came away with a much better sense of the things tried during the time to find the killer. Also the letters I saw were quoted in full with uncorrected punctuation. Other books make the mistake to merely quote pieces of the letters. If you are a person who likes to see for themselves what the evidence was (at least some of it) rather than read an author's interpretation, this is a good book to have. It is far from exhaustive I'm sure, since there is so much in the case files and much of it has vanished since the late 1980s... but it's a really good book to keep around for checking up on things quoted in other books. The inquest transcripts alone give quite a sense of what was and wasn't done at the time.

Also there are autopsy reports and even a drawing of Catherine Eddowes' injuries. And a list of her property gives a sad image of how poor these women were. Most of them were homeless, selling their bodies to pay the few cents for a bed in a public shelter for the night. I recommend this book to supplement your knowledge of the case, for those who are curious about the Ripper crimes.

Very intensive book. Contains a lot detail. Highly recommend.

I can't say whether a full-time "Ripperologist" or long-term Jack the Ripper buff/fanatic will learn anything new in this book. Because I have a passing curiosity but no extensive knowledge in the case. I read a paperback when I was growing up with the basic facts of the case and I just read Patricia Cornwell's book also. I have been searching for supplemental material on the case.

This book is worth buying for those who want to look at the basic material for themselves. For instance, I found the transcript of the inquests very interesting. You get a sense of the scene as it must have been at the time: There is a sketch of Mary Kelly's body being removed by the city and the crowd gathered around; there are photos of the victims which can be seen in other books, but I haven't seen photos of the doorways and such before. Or cartoons from the time such as the man who was repairing (cutting) his boot about a foot from where a body was found a short time later. The drawing gives a great sense of just how close he was actually sitting. Therefore one needs to keep in mind the stygian darkness of those Whitechapel streets. This is how Jack the Ripper may have gone undetected just before and after his crimes.

It also contains letters from police to each other during the investigation, which gives a sense of the urgency they felt to catch the killer and a sense of how things operated back then. Even a sketch of the morgue shed used to examine some of the Ripper victims. Also interesting were the quotes from letters from Queen Victoria stressing the importance to catch the killer -- and her suggestions on things to explore along those lines ! Also, some of the killer profiles drawn up by detectives were amazingly canny. Some books would give the impression the police of the time were bumbling and real profiling was years away; but one profile in this book seemed exactly what a modern profiler might write as to what type of person did the crime.

I came away with a much better sense of the things tried during the time to find the killer. Also the letters I saw were quoted in full with uncorrected punctuation. Other books make the mistake to merely quote pieces of the letters. If you are a person who likes to see for themselves what the evidence was (at least some of it) rather than read an author's interpretation, this is a good book to have. It is far from exhaustive I'm sure, since there is so much in the case files and much of it has vanished since the late 1980s... but it's a really good book to keep around for checking up on things quoted in other books. The inquest transcripts alone give quite a sense of what was and wasn't done at the time.

Also there are autopsy reports and even a drawing of Catherine Eddowes' injuries. And a list of her property gives a sad image of how poor these women were. Most of them were homeless, selling their bodies to pay the few cents for a bed in a public shelter for the night. I recommend this book to supplement your knowledge of the case, for those who are curious about the Ripper crimes.