Crossing to Kill: The True Story of the Serial-Killer Playground [Paperback]

Simon Whitechapel (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2000

Since 1993 over 180 women have been raped and brutally murdered in Ciudad Juarez, a Mexican border town notorious for its pollution and overcrowding. The police continue to arrest suspects, but the killing won't stop. Authorities suspect that killers are coming there to rape and kill with impunity.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

The author is an established novelist and essayist, and has written extensively for a number of magazines. --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Virgin Pub (March 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0753504960
• ISBN-13: 978-0753504963
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 1.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,163,609 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Sensationalistic and poorly written, June 10, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Crossing to Kill: The True Story of the Serial-Killer Playground (Paperback)

I'm sorry that I bought this, and sorrier that I read it. I would still like to understand how Sharif Sharif, an oil company chemist, apparently a serial rapist, was able to commit multiple rapes, with little punishment, and was deported, not back to Egypt, but to Mexico. The author contends that Sharif committed rapes and murders in Juarez, and then master-minded more from behind bars.

The book would have been much improved by background information on the rape cases, and the involvement of his oil-company employers in helping him get off with little or no punishment. The author's speculations and personal opinions were substituted for actual investigation of facts and court records. A two-page tirade about the abnormality of homosexuality and frequent quotes from Colin Wilson don't make up for lack of solid investigative work.

The author did have some interesting ideas about how the young women killed were exploited by the factories which employed them, then by their attackers, and then by feminist political groups. I'd go a little further and say that the author joined in and exploited the victims as well, as there are few attempts to accurately reconstruct these women's lives or portray them as real people. There are quotations from other authors, a lot of philosphical ramblings (until you think you are reading an endless freshman comp lit paper), but little compassion, and quite a bit of breathless fascination with Sharif's cunning, charisma, and personal appearance.

1.0 out of 5 stars Garbage. Save your time and money, August 18, 2010

By 

R. Collins "Dahlia-phile" (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Crossing to Kill: The True Story of the Serial-Killer Playground (Virgin True Crime) (Mass Market Paperback)

A complete mess - all filler and no content. The one star is mandatory, so given grudgingly.

Reads like smarty-pants college kid took a Newsweek article and fluffed it out with shaky theories about Aztec mythology, stirred in some other convoluted extrapolations that bore no clear connection to these crimes. Why do factual research when you can waffle and include material on unrelated pet topics?

I am no wiser about the subject and I will never get back the four hours I took to read the book.

3.0 out of 5 stars Weird Tales (and Tails), July 24, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Crossing to Kill: The True Story of the Serial-Killer Playground (Virgin True Crime) (Mass Market Paperback)

One of the oddest and most far-ranging true-crime titles I've ever read. Some idea of its scope can be had from the fact that the author, in discussing the Egyptian/Muslim background of the serial killer in question (one Sharif Omar), actually touches down in Afghanistan and describes rapes committed by a highly misogynistic set of men called the Taleban. Not so surprising, you might think, but this is in a book first published in 2000. The author's obvious animus against organized religion paid off there, in a sick kinda way, but I wasn't so happy about his attacks on the Catholic church, which has undoubtedly done far more good in the Mexican context than harm. On the other hand, there were some vivid descriptions of Mexican life (and wildlife) and settings and a fascination with the minutiae of human psychology and behavior to set against the strong and even bigoted opinions expressed, and I feel myself attracted almost against my will into a second read. Not only have I never read a true-crime book that explained why jaguars' eyes glow at night, I never imagined it was possible, let alone that it might be relevant to the psychology of serial killing. I'm not sure there's method in the madness of connexions like that but watching them being drawn was sometimes fun.