Serial Murder Books

This one is the April 2005, Issue #22 of the Ripper Notes quarterly magazine-ish pamphlet. Less intriguing than Issue #23 which I read first. Here a collection of Ripper researchers give you a variety of articles, somehow relating to the Whitechapel murders and JtR. First up is a debate on witness testimony of the death time of victim Annie Chapman. Next we look at modern serial killer connections with those of the past, an article on John Robinson (who purportedly may have almost caught the Ripper). From there we look into two more pre-1888 prostitute deaths that might be attributed to the Ripper. Fifth essay deals with the debate on whether there were TWO Mary Kellys, the lesser known being the victim while the better known passing the body off as herself and taking up a new life elsewhere. And we conclude with an article on a "Dear Boss" Ripper stage play which incorporated puppets with live actors.

Overall, Issue 23 is much better but this is still interesting enough to read it.

Ripper Notes is a booklet that collects essays about Jack the Ripper and will usually have several high points of interest to the casual researcher (those of us who read about JtR but don't go digging thru old police records, etc.). Here's what we get in Issue 28 'The Legend Continues':
1. Excellent article on refuting suspect Carl Feigenbaum as JtR.
2. Possibilities of copycat killers involved in the murders ala Jane Beadmoor.
3. Movie myths on the appearance of JtR.
4. Romanticizing Mary Kelly and the reality of just how little info there is about her and her past.
5. A look into the railway system to see if Druitt could have been involved in the events.
6. A look into the Thomas Street murder of Sarah Matthews in 1894.
7. Claims that the body found in a basement is not Cora Crippen based off flawed mtDNA, thus her husband HH Crippen was wrongfully tried & executed for the murder. (not really sure what this had to do with JtR).
8. Presentations on JtR at a conference in Wolverhampton (kinda useless)
9. 'The Trial of the Maybrick Diary' is apparently an annual event in which Ripperologists debate the authenticity of the James Maybrick Diary. Despite so many flaws about it, there is always a verdict of it being real for this event.
10. A review of the rock opera "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper"

And then rounding off the magazine is news and book reviews. Overall there are a few very strong articles (1,2,4) and a few very weak articles (6,8,10). I'm still confused on why the Cora Crippen article is in here but anyway; the strong counteracts the weak and the average articles (3,5,9) hold the balance to an acceptable if not interest issue.

Robin Odell is an expert on his subject and the book contains much useful and interesting detailed information. However I did find the narrative difficult to follow and would have preferred the text to have been broken down into short sections each devoted, say, to one Ripper book and how it contributes to the body of literature.

The book was a fine read and very interesting, but I was very dissapointed to find that so much it was not true. Names, addresses, locations, etc. are almost all incorrect. Perhaps the author or publisher changed them to protect the privacy of those invloved. If so, then that should have been clearly stated. I was hoping for an historically accurate representation of these events and I have no idea if anything in this book is true or not.

This book is an interesting look at Joyce Carol Oates's short story, "Where are you going? Where have you been?". It includes articles about theories regarding the story and its 1980 movie version, but more importantly this edition includes the actual news article that inspired the lurid tale of Connie and A. Friend as well as Ms. Oates own comments on the piece.

I first heard of Laurell K. Hamilton and Anita Blake Vampire Hunter on a toy collector's forum a few years ago from a fan of the series. I picked up Guilty Pleasures, the first book, and rather enjoyed. Now fast forward a few years. I just picked up the audio version of the book Incubus Dreams, which is book twelve in this series not having read the other ten books in between. So I had high expectations for this story.

I finally finished the audio version of Laurell K. Hamilton's Incubus Dreams. Thank god I was listening to the abridged version (only 10 discs) instead of the unabridged version (24 discs). Twelve hours of this droll was bad enough I don't think I could have made it through thirty hours.

So what exactly did they cut out of this story for the abridged version? I thought perhaps major plot points were dropped. But according to the reviews I was reading about the book that might not be the case. So did they must have cut out some of the sex or perhaps the sexual scenes had gone into to more graphic detail than what I was getting. I don't know and I have no intentions of finding out.

I will read her earlier works (I loved Guilty Pleasures when I read that a few years ago and now in comic book form from Marvel), but I don't think I will bother with any of the books beyond this one. Incubus Dreams is 12th in the Anita Blake series so I will have plenty to check out before I finally give up on this author.

If I wish to read (or in this case hear) pure Vampire/Werewolf erotic fantasy I will look for books like Deep Inside: Extreme Erotic Fantasies by Polly Frost. With Anita Blake I was hoping for a Vampire mystery with a little sex in the mix, not that the entire story would be filled with only sex. We lost the whole aspect of any mystery or case a few chapters into this storyline and never got it back again until the very end of the book. Everything in between was one sexual experience after another. We had characters come and go too easily without any story development. What happened to the Vampire servant Damian? Anita f--ks him and he has a complete vampiric break down only to drop out of the story completely without resolving the problems brought on by the encounter. That is only one of many, many flaws with this story. The story ends with what else, more sex and the mystery is left unresolved. Not that I will be picking up book 13 in the series any time soon to see if this author bothers to fill her readers in or not.

My suggestion is to stay away from this story. Go ahead and read the earlier works of this author but don't bother with this book. Even better check out the comic book version of Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter: Guilty Pleasures (at least she is actually hunting vampires, raising the dead and dealing with werewolves instead of just f--king them all).

As I said I was listening to this story. I did not yet touch on the flaws in the audio version, which is published by Brilliance Audio and read by Cynthia Holloway. Cynthia does a good job of rendering the characters and keep our interest even if the story can't. My biggest problem with the audio version is the production. The publishing company Brilliance Audio sees fit to add unneeded audio at the beginning and end of each disk. Most people today take their discs and turn them into MP3s, which is what I did and that is why I found the fade in/out music and notice to put in the next disk a real distraction. Combine that with the repeated two or three lines of text from the previous disc and the annoyance only compounded. So drop the unwanted extras from your audio discs and maybe they will be easier to listen, although even that would not have helped this story.

First off, this is the lowest review score I have ever given I dont usually do bad reviews...I dont know where to start but to say others arnt exagerrating this book is not up to the standards of the others. I will admit I wanted there to be more sex, more bedroom type fun ;) I had no idea that when it came everything else would suffer a GREAT deal! She screwed everyone and please no more its "tight...he's so big" please ANITA stopped being tight a while back lol and lucky her all her men are sooo biggg. So is it worth reading, yeah its barely ok, I would try to get it from a library im selling my entires series...I will continue to read it probably im very forgiving but its just not the same she has a Harem of supposably ALPHA males who are complete chumps,sex toys, and weak....WOW...and WOW what the heck is up with Anita the only way I was able to finish it was to Skim.

After reading all these reviews, I though it was a mistake... the book couldn't be THAT bad!

well, I was wrong. What happened to the plot... suspense... the wonder? The only thing I was left wondering is who is left that Anita can have sex with?

I felt the need to read it because I've every other book in the series, so I guess you can read it if you want to waste your time. But please don't spend money on it...

EVERY situation Anita was in she had sex... maybe not "American" sex, but it's sex. And I don't mean ohhh sexy erotica sex, I mean I'm uncomfortable reading this sex. I think 95-98% of the situations Anita was in ended in some sort of sex/feeding. NOTHING could be simple... walking down the street was complicated. Having sex was complicated! Who, what, where, when, how, what does it mean... what does it means!?!? I wanted to rip pages out!!!

Please, Ms. Hamilton, explain in detail what everyone is wearing down to their unseen underwear. Please, Ms. Hamilton, explain Anita's every thought about everything even though it all contradicts. Please, Ms. Hamilton, tell me about Anita and how her powers keep growing and growing. I feel she has to reach God status in maybe two more books. In the other books she gained one, maybe two, more "powers". I think every time she had sex she got a new power in the books. I can't even count that on two hands.

The only thing I can give credit to, is that some of the characters know Anita is a dummy. So, obviously Hamilton knows Anita is a dummy (she could fix this...). These characters stand up to Anita and tell her to shut up and think like a normal person.

It's just too bad she (Anita and Hamilton!) don't really listen.

There are porn directors out there that are saying " This book needs more plot and a little less sex". I do not know how I actually got through half of this book , but I did and it was one big sex scene. There was about a page and a half devoted to a mystery, but after that it is Anita and the "ardeur" all the way. I sent this book back to the library ( I have not spent money on an Anita Blake book since " Obsidian Butterfly") unfinished, which is something I rarely do. I did decide to check out " Danse Macabre", and it seems to be better. There is still way too much time on the stupid "ardeur", but wayyyy less than " Incubus Dreams". My advice to a reader is to skip " Incubus Dreams" and either go on to "Micah" or " Danse", because this book does nothing for any of the characters and does not add to the storyline whatsoever. Or, if you want to be really smart, check out a new author like Keri Arthur, Charlaine Harris or Kim Harrison. They do some really solid work in the supernatural/mystery/romance line.

A really weak book.
Practically no plot and way too much sex.
Believe me, I don't begrudge Anita her sex life with all the beautiful and supportive were-men. I was delighted when she overcame her prudery and hang-ups - how long can you whine about a cad that ditched you back in college, after all.
This book, however, really overdoes it. First there are hundreds of pages of "we have to talk" scenes and endless discussion of everybody's sexual needs. Then there are hundreds of pages of sex. Towards the end there is (finally!!) a mention of bad guys and a brief visit to a crime scene that solves nothing.
I really wish Anita would put on some clothes and go back to work.

Disturbing history of Jack the Ripper and disclosure of Cornwell's claimed resolution: The Ripper was Walter Sickert, an English artist who, claims Cornwell, painted some of the murder scenes in his art and wrote the Ripper letters to the police and newspapers.

The argument appears convincing, although Cornwell, a famous fiction murder mystery writer, uses too much speculation and circumstantial evidence.

Ultimately, if Sickert was the Ripper, as painted by Cornwell, the whole thing was very creepy. Don't read this book alone after dark.

Why on earth did Cornwell spend a fantastically huge amount of money in order to produce this? Maybe I should get her to adopt me; I'd make better use of her funds.

Other reviewers have already mentioned her lack of sources, her erroneous DNA conclusions, and the like. One of the things that really caught me was her assumption that a dark lantern provided hardly any light at all, simply because she experimented with one. On her patio. Not in the East End of London. She claims that a dark lantern was NOT the brilliant, illuminating tool shown in contemporary illustrations, but a weak and hotly burning liability.

If that were the case, why would dark lanterns be issued to London's police force? Why would a lantern that, as Cornwell claims, can't illuminate an object only six inches away, be thought of as a helpful instrument? It wouldn't. Clearly, Cornwell's "test" was just as useful as the money she spent in "research". The $6 million dollar book. She'd have done better to try to create a bionic man.

this books is well constructed,and is very entertaining. i enjoyed it very much.i would recommend it to any one who is a real jack the ripper fan.most other books are poorly written and hard to follow,even for the most avid readers.

There is not a shred of evidence linking Sickert to these killings. All Cornwell does is try to prove it's "not impossible" that he did it. Totally unconvincing. Cornwell should stick to fiction, where this book belongs.

Cornwell has some serious hubris to come to, and stick to, this conclusion. Let us hope that she is never run up on charges backed by as little evidence as she presents in this wild goose chase. I understand the case is about as cold as they get a hundred years after the fact but the very circumstantial leaps of faith she builds her case with is very laughable and not even the basis of an indictment let alone a conviction. Now Walter Sickert [yeah, a name made to order] may have been a tyrant and misogynist but these are not crimes. In fact a lot of artists are these things, fueled by their own self import and ego but that doesn't make them murders.

The most likely explanation tends to be the correct one, which is that Jack was a nobody [not a nationally known artist with several biographies to his name]. And it is most likely that he died in 1888, was committed, or imprisoned for other crimes. Sickert was none of those things, if he was even in London at all during the canonical five murders. Cornwell goes on the assumption that since she finds no evidence that he was out of London, therefore he must have been there [though he was a frequent traveler]. It would be a stronger case if she could get strong traction in handwriting expertise in the Ripper letters and Sickert's. She says that some experts conclude them identical but is awfully skimpy on the experts' names. She should mention the evidence against her own case. Take it head on.

The situation kinda reminds me of people that deal in reincarnation. They always claim they were someone famous in another life and never the common nobody. It's selling sensationalism, and that's this book. The two selling points about this book are the presented facts of the Ripper murders and letters [and not the baseless conjecture of Sickert's involvement]. The second selling point are that the chapters seem to end precisely when you have had enough of them. That kind of pace is refreshing actually. My advice, get it from the library [as I did], and skip the biographical chapters about Walter and his wife and family.

There really isn't much to say in this review that hasn't already been said before. The supernatural aspect introduced in this book is highly contradictory to the first two and makes the book ooze a sort of over-the-top weirdness that makes the entire thing so implausible that it's hard to really get into.

On top of that, I simply found the book to be incredibly boring. Dexter is only followed through one kill early on, and then the rest of the book revolves around him having anxiety attacks. There is such an extensive build-up of what can only be assumed was meant as suspense (and an overly-complex plot with the Watchers and Moloch), that when everything ties up so rapidly in the last twenty pages that it's all incredibly anti-climactic. Deborah's character was reduced to mindless incompetence, Doakes was completely dismissed, Vince was turned into even more of an abnormal joke, and Angel-no-relation was almost entirely absent. Everything that made the first two books shine with brilliance is either diluted or simply missing from this book. With the exception of reading it simply for chronological purposes, I can't recommend this book to anyone expecting the same standards of the first two.

I listened to this book because I have read the previous two and found them interesting and smartly written. I listened to this audiobook and was first disgusted with the filthy language every other sentence from Deborah. GD, JC, and F is her vocab. Can we be more creative? Plus, is she a cop or is Dexter? Her character cannot do one thing without her brother Dexter! She is suppossed to be the chief? Dexter's dark passenger has left him throughout the whole book, which totally deviates from previous writtings. Training the kids Astor/Cody to kill, crazy and sick. This whole book was dissappointing, dont bother, but if you do prepare to cover your ears from the horribly unnecessary language. If this is what Jeff Lindsay gives, I'm done with him!!

As most have said, this wasn't quite as good as the first two Dexter novels. I didn't dislike it as much as many though. Most people's biggest problem was the supernatural aspect to it. This part didn't bother me too much since it wasn't specific to any belief system that I am aware of. I think the biggest downside to it is that the supernatural explanation of the dark passenger sort of deflated a bit of the intrigue built up around Dexter's character. I would also have to agree that changing from Dexter's first person narrative to the third person narrative of IT, and the hhird person narrative of the Watcher did break up the smooth flow of the book. I can see why Lindsay did it, but I think that reducing the amount of detail about IT and the Watcher could have allowed the narrative to stay in Dexter's first person, and increased the mystery and suspense.

It's sad to see such a good series descend to this level. This book was a real disappointment. It's hard to know where to start but the overall premise of the book, that Dexter's "Dark Passenger" is actually a supernatural possession by some kind of child of Moloch an eternal something-or-other, lacks so much believability that it ruins the entire series. What made the first two books so good was that Dexter was the sociopath trying to live in the real world. His "Dark Passenger" was simply a different part of Dexter's personality. The success of the books was that we rooted for Dexter and his "Dark Passenger" in spite of him being a sociopath. But how can we root for some horrible monster that possesses Dexter and forces him to kill?

But Lindsay goes too far even with his idea of how someone becomes a sociopath. Every child, at least according to Lindsay, who is abused as a child, grows up to be a serial killer. Rita's two kids both become sociopaths because they were abused by their father. But that isn't how it happens in the real world. Not all serial killers were abused and not everyone who is abused becomes a serial killer. We can root for Dexter when he is unique and only killing other serial killers, but how can we root for him to create more serial killers? Dexter should be sending the children for intense psychotherapy, not lessons in how to kill.

And worst of all, the book is simply boring. Nothing much happens. There are murders but it is impossible to keep straight who is killing who and the murders (and murderers) are almost irrelevant. We hear more about donuts and wedding caterers than we do about anything else. And there really is no mystery in the story. We find out in the first pages of the book who did it although I kept hoping that the book wasn't really going to be this stupid and that Lindsay would give us some other surprise solution. I am fairly confident that this is the last Dexter book I will be reading.

Shortly into the book I told a friend "either the latest Dexter book is taking a sharp turn into the supernatural, or something really mindbending is being set up."

I had high hopes for the latter, because we've had psychological twists before. Unfortunately it wasn't, and even more unfortunately, it wasn't done *well*.

Since I'd read the reviews and knew this book was about time travel and sci-fi, both of which interest me, I liked it. Granted there were a few loose ends but they were minor. The character of Knox caught on with me right away, Nikita took a bit longer.

I love Linda Howard books, but this one just didn't cut it for me. The plot was interesting and would have been MUCH better if the drama surrounding what was in the time capsule were developed more.

The characters were dull and it was really hard to identify with either of them. The idea that Nikita was a "copy" didn't add anything to the story and could have been left out, unless we'd heard something about it from Nikita's mother and/or father. It would have been much more interesting to shuttle back and forth from the future to the past in respect to her family.

It would also have been interesting to have Nikita exploring all the items from the past rather than just saying that "she studied them in preparation for her assignment". It would have been fun to see how she figured out how to use the coffee maker, washing machine/dryer and shower, since those were the items most talked about in Knox's house.

I found the "link" stuff pretty dopey because it wasn't explained exactly how they worked. Just put them on and be transported back and forth? Doesn't seem to make too much sense.

I wouldn't recommend anyone buy this book. I got it from the library and I'm glad I did.

The characters did not interest me as much as I would have liked. There was not much in the way of romantic or emotional development. I much prefer Ms. Howard's other books. Story brief: Bad guys from around 2200 time travel back to 2005 to get something of value. Nikita is an FBI agent from 2200 who travels to 2005 to stop them, but doesn't know what they are looking for. She and the police chief Knox work together and fall for each other. Some people are murdered. The author toys with Nikita's lack of understanding of slang. For example, instead of calling someone a "big baby" she calls him a "large baby." Knox says she might "split". She doesn't know that means "leave." It wasn't that interesting for me. Sexual language: moderate. Number of sex scenes: two. Setting: 1985 and 2005 small town in Kentucky. Copyright: 2005. Genre: time travel mystery story with a little suspense and a little romance.

In an odd way, Linda Howard reminds me of another prolific and highly successful author: Louis L'amour. It might seem strange to compare a romance writer to the King of the Westerns, but there are definite similarities. Neither has what would be considered great writing style, but both can tell a heck of a story. Both work almost exclusively within a single genre (although Howard has stretched herself a bit more within hers, writing romance-suspense, romance-SF and so on), but both seem to be able to wring more out of "the same thing, only different" than almost anyone else. Both, at the end of the day, are entertaining.

In Killing Time, Howard combines romance with suspense and science-fiction. Without giving away the plot, the romance and suspense portions make a lot more sense than the SF. But that's okay. Howard tells her usual good story, and you'll find yourself wanting to know what happens to the characters very early on. Unlike some other very famous romance authors, Howard seems to be getting better with age. Killing Time isn't necessarily her absolute best work, but it's well worth the cover price, especially if you've got a long rainy day ahead of you.

The plotline is interesting, but what happened to the editor? There are repeats everywhere. In one short paragraph, "this morning" appears three times. Due to poor editing, it was a bit of work to get through what could have been a good story.

HUGE DISSAPOINTMENT. I READ THE FIRST BOOK AND WOULD HAVE GIVEN IT 5 STARS. IS THIS AMERICA? ARE WE NOT INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY? WE SHOULD LEARN SOMETHING FROM RICHARD JEWELL. YEAH, I GUESS THERE IS A REMOTE POSSIBILITY HE COULD HAVE BEEN ZODIAC, BUT WHAT IF HE WASN'T. ALTHOUGH HE WAS ODD, NO ONE DESERVES TO BE PERSECUTED BY THE MEDIA IN THEIR FINAL YEARS OF LIFE (UNLESS FOR SURE HE WAS ZODIAC). COME ON-HIS DNA DID NOT MATCH, THE FINGER PRINT DID NOT MATCH. IT SEEMS THAT MR GRAYSMITH HAD TUNNEL VISION AND IS TRYING HIS HARDEST TO CONVICE US THAT HE WAS ZODIAC, WHEN THE PHYSICAL EVIDENCE SAYS DIFFERENT. SKIP THIS BOOK, JUST BUY "ZODIAC", GRAYSMITH'S 1ST BOOK.

I'm shocked by the reviewers who read this and didn't think Arthur Leigh Allen was the Zodiac. It reaches a point where an unbelievable number of coincidences, and identifications from witnesses and victims are too compelling to consider otherwise.

Yes, Leigh's fingertips didn't match. Yes, his handwriting didn't match. Yes, they never found a "smoking gun." Leigh was an intelligent person who took considerable precautions to ensure he wouldn't get caught. Plus, there is no proof the fingerprints in question were from the Zodiac. They could have come from a number of different people (they did not get elimination prints from everyone at the scene).

As for peoople who didn't like the way the book was written, keep it mind this is not a mystery novel. Events were written in chronological order and often required additional information so the reader would understand.

I agree that some material is repeated and could have done without some of it myself. If you're interested at all in this case, the overwhelming amount of research and information is worth such a minor flaw.

Author too long winded. I love true crime, but this book just couldn't hold my attention.

After seeing David Fincher's film ZODIAC I got a craving to find out more about the crimes Zodiac committed, so I ordered a copy of Zodiac Unmasked, seeing as how the screenwriters adapted this book into the script. All I can say now is, the screenwriters must be geniuses for I have never read so disorganized and badly written a true crime book and I've plowed through some doozies in my lifetime. If you've seen the movie, you've seen Jake Gyllenhaal playing Robert Graysmith, this inoffensive, innocuous mousy cartoonist who hangs out all day at the Chronicle newsroom and little by little he becomes obsessed with the case to the detriment of his home life.

It's not that cartoonists can't write good books, but I wonder how good a cartoonist Graysmith was because as a writer, he's the bottom of the barrel. Not one sentence he writes make sense. Okay, some make sense but then the problem is that whatever interest you had at the beginning of the sentence evaporates by the time he gets to the end. Part of the problem is the hugeness of his topic. Not only are there literally hundreds of suspects, very few of whom ever come alive as "characters," but there are hundreds of cops, ditto, and witnesses, ditto, all of them a huge blur, and there also seem to be hundreds of Northern California towns all of which Zodiac knew well and left terror there.

We can never get an estimate of how many crimes Zodiac committed nor how many letters he wrote. Graysmith doesn't want to say "no" to any possibility, so all of them are left flapping in the wind like the monkey's gumballs.

And yet another part of the problem is that, halfway through the events he relates, he makes the central one the publication of his first book about Zodiac, in which he identified his main suspect under a pseudonym (the man was still alive at that time), so we get hundreds of new sightings based on readers who read #1, called up Graysmith, told him they knew who he was talking about, and he was right, that man is strange. Maybe the first book was better for it wouldn't have all this patting himself on the back in it. This one is nigh unreadable. However since it was the basis for one of the best thrillers I've ever seen, I'm bumping it up a notch or two.

I enjoyed both Graysmith/Zodiac books, but ZODIAC UNMASKED was 100 PAGES TOO LONG. Plus much of the info was repeated 2-4 times. I was almost expecting a test at the end!