Richard Lourie

This is a fascinating detective story that happens to be true. It would be hard to write a dull book about Andrei Chikatilo, but the way the author drew his characters really gripped me -- as did his horrific examples of the corruption and incompetence within the Soviet criminal justice system, which among other things lead an innocent man to be convicted of one of Chikatilo's murders and executed.

A word of warning: the book is as much about Inspector Kostoev (who was in charge of the task show more force to find Chikatilo and who eventually wrung a confession out of him) as it is about Chikatilo and his crimes. It goes into great detail about Kostoev's background, childhood, etc. I found it all very interesting but others may just want to read about the murders. Most of the Kostoev biography can be skipped if you really don't want to read it. show less

A story of a young boy coming of age in WWII Holland. This book has a bit more complexity than many books in the genre. Instead of presenting evil Germans, sacrificed Jews, and a saintly citizenry risking their lives to harbor Jews, this short books shows the complicated and ambivalent feelings that many of the Dutch had and shows how their own family life and own need for survival contributed to many of their actions. The tie in to Anne Franks's story, revealed in the first few pages, show more offers a unique historical perspective. show less

This book, published in 2017, makes for an odd read in 2024. On some points, like the historical roots of Putin and Russia's attitude towards Ukraine, the author is insightful and almost prescient. On others, well, no one can predict the future and the lines about Alexei Navalny not being aggressively prosecuted feel remarkably off base. This book serves as a decent enough overview, but I found little that I had not already known.

This is an inventive and fascinating book about one of the great evil dictators in history. What is so amazing is the writer's depiction of Stalin as an ordinary, little man who grew to have unwiedly power. One is remineded of Hannah Arendt's comments about the banality of evil.