Talking with Serial Killers: The Most Evil People in the World Tell Their Own Stories

I gave this a good 45 minutes on audio before bailing. This was most of the prologue and introduction and I just could not get along with the tone of the author. He takes aim at Lord Longford's belief that criminals can be rehabilitated and implies that the eye for an eye should be a sound approach to modern sentencing. The passage where he denigrates the prison service is not a high point. If that makes me a soft liberal, so be it; I am happy with my position. I decided I didn't need a further 8 hours with this person in my ears.

Bought this book a while ago (like more than 2 years ago) and just recently I got around reading it. The author is certainly well known in the sector considering he got to interview such high-risk inmates and the writing style is smooth and easy to read, nothing too difficult of extraordinary in this department. My edition (ISBN 9781904034537) does NOT have an index of content which I thought was weird and didn't appreciate it. The killers whose voice we can briefly "hear" are:

- Harvey Louis Carignan

- Arthur John Shawcross

- John Martin Scripps

- Michael Bruce Ross

- Ronald Joseph "Butch" DeFeo Jr.

- Aileen Carol Wuornos

- Kenneth Allen McDuff

- Douglas Daniel Clark & Carol Mary Bundy (she's not related to Ted Bundy)

- Henry Lee Lucas

The show more author gives pretty detailed accounts of the lives and murders of these killers, their childhoods which were often traumatic, their relationship with the world and people close to them, their modus operandi and some details about their unfortunate victims.

Each chapter begins with a quote from the killer or important to understand the killer better, I especially loved the one that opened the chapter dedicated to Henry Lee Lucas, a quote by Dr. Rhawn Joseph (psychotherapist, neuropsychologist and neuroscientist): " Just as the living tree retains its early core, within the core of each of us is the Child that we once were. This Child constitutes the foundation of what we have become, who we are, and what we will be" This quote is of course referring to the traumatic childhood of Henry Lee Lucas which was made up of physical, psychological and sexual abuse by his parents and relatives, hardships in school and poverty.
The chapters end with the author narrating his interviews with the killers specifying how he came in contact with them and the killers are here allowed to express themselves in their own words which are surely captivating, but not enough in my personal opinion.

I would have loved to read more directly from these murderers and I was kind of let down by the scarcity of this particular bit which should have much more space in the book. All of the killers in the book are American, except for Scripps, an Englishman that killed in South-East Asia, on the other hand I appreciated the fact that the author focused on less known killers since I only knew Wuornos and Lucas and I only heard of the Amityville Horror.

In the end an interesting book that had the potential to become something much more interesting had the killers talked more. show less

The author blew his own horn a lot, frequently mentioning how many people he interviewed and how he is the first to do so etc. I was surprised how sensationalist he sounded. The style didn't do much for his credibility.
Also, I expected more analysis and less chronicling. It makes me want to read more about serial killers, but only because it left so much open.

I thought this book was very well researched with more details revealed about the crimes and methods of punishment than usual. However, I agree with moomin_mama - commas crop up in the most peculiar unneccesary places so I think the proof readers have not done the best job. I did enjoy it though I couldn't give it the review it probably deserves due to the obvious time and endeavour used to create it.

Quite an interesting read about several serial killers. I was a bit disappointed though because the title of the book would suggest that there would be more quotes from the serial killers, whereas actually these are very few and far between. Worth reading if you are interested in true crime/serial killers.

Meh. There are better books about serial killers, there are worse books about serial killers. Unless this is the first book you have ever read about killers, you won't learn much and there is some outright bad information in this book but it's too "meh" for me to give a crap.

Yeah. I don't know. I'm not feeling it but I'm not hating it. Like, if you're on a plane and have nothing else to read, this book will help pass the time and maybe that is all we can ask from yet another book about serial killers.