Customer Reviews

Blood Stain

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Barb & Ken Knight's baby girl Kathy grew up to be a gramma and one mean piece of work. Having honed the art of killing, knifing, slicing, and dicing to a fine art prior to the closing of the abattoir in Aberdeen, Australia, she turned her vocational training to the man she thought done her wrong - making a meal of which Hannibal Lector himself would have been happy to partake. The scariest part is that Kathy's real.

Peter Lalor, local journalist, has done a fine work of writing about the lives and times of the Knights, the crimes, the victims, and the Aussie Law and Order folk. Of Kathy's piece de resistance, he aptly sums: "it was a crime that would have appalled Edgar Allan Poe and humbled the imaginings of Stephen King."

As should be with all books in the True Crime genre, there are orientating photos in the center. For the non-local reader, a map of New South Wales would have been welcome, as would a glossary in the back: tip = dump? Chooks = chickens? And what to make of this sentence: "Bob Price has an esky in a car in the carpark and is topping up constantly." Nonetheless, an excellent account of a terrible true tale. /TundraVision, Amazon US reviewer.

This is a horrific book and at times I wanted to close my eyes, but Lalor is a compelling writer who won't let you go. I picked it up and could not put it down. It is the story of the most awful woman imaginable who commits the most awful crime imaginable, or at least it seems so until you understand the sort of person she was and sort of world she lived in. A slaughter house worker she stabbed, skinned, beheaded and cooked her partner in a night of passionate, murderous indulgence. Strangely enough none of her ex partners are surprised by what she did.
If you love crime you will love this book.

Peter Lalor tells a compelling story of mental illness, domestic violence, family dysfunction, and a murder so gruesome the lead detective developed Posttraumatic Stress Disorder following a walk-through of the crime scene. With descriptions that paint a disturbing picture, and extensive research about the murderess and her family, this story is unforgettable. Following is an introduction to the author and his unique style. Lalor writes:

"Something hangs in the archway between the kitchen and the living room, contorted and shapeless. Some sort of drape. It's the first thing you notice. It takes a moment, then you realize. It's him. John Price. At least it's his skin hanging like a wetsuit on a nail. A man melted like a Dali clock. A human curtain. The face is a sick rubber mask without a skull to give it shape. The eye holes vacant under an exaggerated eyebrow arch.... The rest is slashed and punctured, hanging in porcine strips right down to his flanged feet. A patch of pubic hair offers some orientation."

With a long history of mental illness, sexual abuse, and family dysfunction extending back several generations, Katherine Knight, at the age of 20, left her newborn on the railroad tracks and held a mother and her children hostage in a service station... brandishing one of her prized abbatoir knives. The following morning, when the terrified mother visited the police station to file charges against Knight, she was told it was pointless. Similarly, following other rages and psychiatric hospitalizations, Knight was often discharged within days, hospital administrators stating there was really very little they could do.

I am not familiar with Australian law or the mental health assistance available there; however, Knight was clearly disturbed and a danger to herself and others. I cannot accept that in 1976, the year of her first serious run-in with the law, Knight could not have been charged with a felony and disciplined accordingly. The mental health system also shirked responsibility and failed miserably. Despite numerous suicide attempts and violence toward others, Katherine Knight was regarded with a mixture of pity and fear, but offered no significant help of any kind.

With few consequences for her outrageous behavior, and deteriorating under the strain of untreated mental illness for another 25 years, Katherine Knight finally did what she had threatened to do to so many others. She murdered her male partner. Fueled by fantasy and revenge, she then skinned him with a skillful hand, later severing his head and boiling it in a pot with vegetables.

Dinner is served.

Alternately horrifying and gruesome, BLOOD STAIN is a gripping account of a woman gone mad. The author writes like no one else and weaves together the details of a tragic and terrifying descent into the dark corners of human desire and emotional instability. Highly recommended, True Crime fans will cheer!

This book was really hard to put down. If you love true crime, then this is the book for you! It's so rare to read about a female serial killer. This book did both Katherine Knight and her victims justice. It's hard to believe that Lalor was able to take all the police reports and interviews and turn them into a very readable book, but he did. And did it exceptionally well!

A spine tingling true crime story. This is a book you will not forget. It is a sad, but true account of womans grizzly revenge on her lover. Very well written. Beautiful color photos in the book.

Peter Lalor's BLOOD STAIN details the murder of John Price by Katherine Knight. I read a lot of true crime, and true crime doesn't get more disturbing than this. Without going into detail, it is one of the most horrific murders I've ever read about to the point where it was difficult to continue at some points. Suffice it to say that what Lalor refers to as a blood stain is something like referring to the Gulf of Mexico as a pond.
BLOOD STAIN takes place and was written in Australia and author Lalor provides a real feel for the small town life of Aberdeen, New South Wales, the focal point of the action, and he is aided by some very nice color pictures, a true crime first for me. Lalor describes and quotes the residents, who I can best describe as white trash, extensively, and his work in researching the life - from childhood through conviction - of Katherine Knight is masterful. At times, though, it becomes repetitive since Knight, an unintelligent, insecure, violent, cruelly manipulative, and thoroughly unpleasant woman, is pretty much a one trick pony, a discussion of whose lunacy no matter how well done - and Lalor does well -could be sufficiently covered in a long magazine article. As such I found the book starting briefly to drag a little about 2/3 of the way through. But Lalor picks it back up with his presentation of the psychiatric evaluations undergone by Knight.

BLOOD STAIN is really a dynamite book, the occasional repetition notwithstanding. Lalor writes with enthusiasm and has produced a book that is a fast paced and interesting read. I highly recommend this book to fans of the genre, and I thank my friend in Lubbock for recommending and lending me this book.

20 pages of story and 284 pages of filler. Save your money and pass on this one.