18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not Enough Detail for Me! A Good True Crime Book!, July 17, 2007
This review is from: Beyond Cruel (St. Martin's True Crime Library) (Mass Market Paperback)
This book was a fast read partly because the author has written short chapters with specific titles. Every true crime writer is probably trying to find the next Ted Bundy. Mike is no Ted Bundy although he thinks he is smarter and more sophisticated but a student of the man's crimes. Mike is a very sick man who has done horrible acts of violence towards innocent women including his wives and other women like real estate agents. His murder count is a lot lower to our knowledge because it's possible that he killed more but won't talk about it. He's in jail for life. He did have a sick, perverse sexuality which featured unwilling participants in bondage. He murdered a couple of women and a man who ill-stricken in Greece, New York. There are pictures and some basic information about his crimes but not enough detail or thorough explanation of how he became a monster in human flesh.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Textbook Writing Makes For Dullish Reading, September 18, 2007
This review is from: Beyond Cruel (St. Martin's True Crime Library) (Mass Market Paperback)
The story of Mike Debardeleben, as related in Stephen Michaud's recent publication, Beyond Cruel, is written more in textbook style than in standard true crime books. Instead of taking the facts and making an easy to reading, easily flowing story, Michaud's somewhat just list the facts paragraph by paragraph then breaks it further down into chapter by chapter.
And while Debardeleben's crimes were absolutely horrendous, I would not, by far, call him the most sadistic killer.
Also, be prepared to wade through tons of information about his counterfeiting crimes while looking for the "sadistic" part of the story.
The most interesting part to me was the epilogue that detailed follow up information on his children; especially the daughter that was placed for adoption at birth.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
My IQ dropped - dullsville, June 21, 2008
This review is from: Beyond Cruel (St. Martin's True Crime Library) (Mass Market Paperback)
I'm a big biography and true-crime fan, and have read hundreds of books in these genres. The quality of the writing is so variable in true crime that it is often a gamble when you buy one of these books. This story has so much potential to be gripping, moving, chilling, upsetting, enlightening, or SOMETHING - how could it end up being written so dully? Well, it was... dull. Deadly, horribly dull.
It was really skimpy on details, which I understand some readers may appreciate, since not everyone wants to know every grisly moment. OK, but if you're going to skip the scary/gross/perverted/evil minutiae, at least make it interesting somehow. This book was just sooo dull, dry, simplistic, and written at a fourth-grade reading level to boot.
Here, you don't need to buy it - literally here it is: there was this guy named Mike Debardeleben, who was obsessed with his overbearing, overweight mom (like all serial killers, yawn) and he traveled around doing various crimes, including counterfeiting (where did he get so skillful? Where did he get his equipment? I sure don't know), and raping and killing women. He was 100% evil and vile. Then he got caught due to the pure-hearted heroism of the federal agents and cops. They are 100% good. The cops thought alot of the evidence was yucky and it made them feel icky, but they didn't give up, and Mikey ended up in jail.
Real life isn't that black-and-white.
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