Ryan Green (1)

Not trying to steal from one of my favorite podcasts, but this book is insane — and in more ways that I can even describe. The dedication to any topic, much less the lives and workings of 12 serial killers (or pairs), and to go so deep, so fully entangled with the lives and history, not to mention some of these cases are touched by decades, sometimes hundreds of years — insane.

And speaking of the depth, it’s 1767 pages long, according to my ebook reader of choice. It’s long. This show more took me many a night. I love true crime podcast, but this… it’s whole episodes, and it’s 12 times over. Some of them, I’ve heard before — even the casual human is aware of the horrific Robert Speck, Charles Whitman, and some have niche followings, the soap maker, Dumollard. But some, some are just terrible humans??? doing just some horrible stuff. The amount of detail poured into this book is just insane.

And horrific stuff spread evenly, not just over time, but gender, country of origin, social economic standing, maybe, but it’s all there. I’ve listed the murderer names, but obviously there are partner, accomplices, those who let this go on… if you have the time, or make the time for stuff like this, it’s good. Dense and well written, but loooooong. Besides the weight of it, I would say, I wish there was some sort of through line, should they be chronological, or Americans first, then the foreign killers, or something to organize the killers in some way, but it’s all there, one by one or all in.

And of course the selection of these monsters, why pick this one and not that one? Maybe some scoring rubric as to why these were the interesting ones, at least to the author. I can’t say I’ve been beating down my local book shop for a Earle Nelson or a Boone Helm story, but it’s here and I’m thrilled, just wondering why.

In short, it’s great. It’s a very sinister encyclopaedia of horror — you could do six and have a wider appeal for those who can’t spend a month on a book. Or keep writing and do all the psychos out there, with this level of dedication I’d spread that month, I just think my mental health probably could use some unicorns and rainbows and fluffy kitties to forget about it. Well done, I don’t shudder but this is top notch stuff.

Carl Panzran
Dorothea Puente
Robert Speck
Leonarda Cianciulli, soap maker
Charles Whitman
Boone Helm
Richard Chase
Earle Nelson
John Justin Bunting
Marcel Petiot
Clifford Olson
Martin Dumollard show less

I really enjoyed this Halloween read (as it turned out) taking us into the Dorothea Puente spider lair and the drugger semi-consciousness or her cocooned, plastic-wrapped victims. I was first concerned with the short length yet in the end I felt I heard the complete story or dysfunctional, abused youth transmogrified into wicked boarding house proprietor. The only thing I would have liked to have had was some insight (maybe juror interview?) into how a jury deadlocked over responsibility for show more this unearthed graveyard of victims.

Also, very good job by Steve White (Narrator) show less

Green dives headfirst into his creative nonfiction invitation to imagine victims concluding internal lives; in this case drowning victims. I allow all that for this deep dive into the development from childhood of Peter Kürten, the fin de siècle German serial killer known as "The Vampire of Düsseldorf" and the "Düsseldorf Monster". Evolving into vampirism and nymphomania, I can grant Green immense latitude on driving the tour bus for the life of the murderer who shortly before his head show more was placed on the guillotine, asked the question: "Tell me... after my head is chopped off, will I still be able to hear, at least for a moment, the sound of my own blood gushing from the stump of my neck? That would be the pleasure to end all pleasures." show less

I honestly don't understand the hype around this book. First, the author pretends to know the various involved people's thoughts and motivations without ever indicating that he's speculating (which he must be).

Further, the book did not contain a single citation. Since there's a lot more information available here than in most other sources, and the author has proven himself willing to embellish the facts by pretending to know exactly what a murdered person was thinking when they were show more murdered, where the author got that information is relevant.

I ultimately had to take everything with a grain of salt. And it doesn't help that the author makes his disdain for sex workers regularly known. show less