Nigel Blundell

Growing up, the Green River Killer was our bogeyman, he wasn't caught until I was in high school, by a man I knew as Officer Reichert, who would come to my elementary school and talk to us about stranger danger. In my adult years I would watch a movie about this man and the strides he took to capture one of the most evil men in the world. My stepbrother remembers seeing Ridgeway at lunch when he worked Boeing. As a pastor, my father once counseled a family of one of Rideway's victims. It's a show more game of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, Serial Killer edition.

Maybe it's because I was born, raised, and continue to live in the murderous epicenter of the Pacific Northwest, but since I was old enough to Google, I guess, since the invention of Google, I've been fascinated with serial killers. So it was only natural that when I saw that this book was available to wish for, I was definitely interested, and it did not disappoint.

A very thorough and comprehensive rundown of some truly evil and horrific people, this book gives just enough detail to sate the curious mind, but not too much so as it's difficult to read. Some may still find it a bit graphic, as I've become mildly desensitized due to my own research, but I would warn off those that are more sensitive.

Even as familiar as I am with my state's sordid past, I was shocked to learn of yet another case that hit very close to home, specifically, the town most of my family lives, and where my husband graduated from high school. This isn't some sprawling city, either, this is a small, farming town at the base of Mt. Rainier. While this book is nonfiction, it is neither dry nor clinical. It was engaging and readable, and I would recommend it to anyone that is at all interested in a complete, yet compact, history of some of the most deplorable humans to grace mankind.

Thanks to NetGalley for a free copy in exchange for an honest review. show less

Perhaps the most interesting thing about this murder-opedia is that it feels like it has a British focus, so there is more detail on European and English murderers, like Fred West, who was apprehended and charged in 1994, apparently when this text was authored. However, the material, already burdened by excessive grammatical errors, feels more dated than it should be, as if Blundell pasted in notes or material a decade or so older in many cases. When this jumps out in the cases I know, it show more makes me doubt what I am reading about killers I am not as familiar with. For instance, the 1996 book The Boston Stranglers based on the files of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts "Strangler Bureau" argues that those stranglings were the work of several killers rather than solely Albert DeSalvo as still suggested here. Similarly, the Atlanta murders of 1979–81 include only 2 killings for which Wayne Williams was convicted and criminal profiler John E. Douglas told us in 1998 in Mind Hunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit cryptically: "It isn't a single offender and the truth isn't pleasant." No even real suggestion beyond Williams' protestations of that "truth" here. Also, In May 1996, Chicago television news anchor Bill Kurtis received video tapes made at Stateville Correctional Center in 1988 from an anonymous attorney. Showing them publicly for the first time before the Illinois state legislature, Kurtis pointed out the explicit scenes of sex, drug use, and money being passed around by prisoners, who seemingly had no fear of being caught; in the center was Richard Speck, performing oral sex on another inmate, sharing a large quantity of cocaine with another inmate, parading in silk panties, sporting female-like breasts (allegedly grown using smuggled hormone treatments), and boasting, "If they only knew how much fun I was having, they'd turn me loose." With no mention of that at all in Speck's entry, I believe the text in need of an editor was written in 1995 or earlier despite when the book was published. show less

Serial Killers: The World's Most Evil by Nigel Blundell is a brief overview, based on Dr Michael Stone's Scale of Evil, of the most evil killers. The review copy I had didn't include the brief introduction to that scale though it is referred to as being at the start of the book, so readers unfamiliar will have access to what that entails.

First, what this is not. For readers of Ann Rule and other true crime writers who recount the crimes almost like fictional stories, this may disappoint a show more little. This is not a narrative walk-through of the crimes themselves, this is more of a recap of what the killer(s) did, how they managed to operate as long as they did and what led to their ultimate capture or exposure.

If you are mostly interested in learning about any serial killers you may not have heard of, this book will serve you well. You won't get a lot of narrative detail but you will get a lot of what would be in an abbreviated case file. While these are located largely in western/Anglo countries and does not investigate in some other countries, I think this is as much a case of citing cases where the information is complete and easily accessible rather than a desire to leave out any regions of the world. Not every country makes their serial killers as well known or makes the cases so openly available. And this book is less about extensive research and more about collecting what is available into a nice small package. In that, it succeeds.

People who have read extensively on the subject, or those wanting more depth, particularly psychological analysis, may want to skim the table of contents first and see if there are any new names you aren't familiar with. For many other readers who, like myself, simply wanted to be reminded of what we read and/or studied years ago along with a brief overview of each case will be satisfied with a wider net but not a deep cast. We likely have some deep casts on our bookshelves and can always revisit those when we want to immerse ourselves again into the psyches of evil.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley. show less

The world is full of some sick and twisted people and within these pages Nigel Blundell has collected some of the very worst.
Well written without playing to the subjects ego's so as to limit the notoriety most of these killers strive for, it is an interesting look at some of the most heinous crimes and the perpetrators the world has ever produced and seen the likes of such depravity.