Customer Reviews

Killing for Company: The Story of a Man Addicted to Murder

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book grabs your attention from the very first paragraph as it describes the events leading up to Dennis Nilsen's arrest. It explains in detail Nilsen's early years, and the profound psychological effect on the 6 year-old Nilsen when he sees his first dead body - the corpse of his beloved grandfather.
Although Nilsen's crimes were horrific and, to us, senseless, you cannot help but feel immensely sorry for a man who is so consumed with loneliness that he prefers the company of a corpse to no company at all, hence the title of the book. One can but imagine what might have been if Nilsen had been able to form a stable and secure relationship with someone.


An extremely interesting book for anyone interested in the criminal mind - but definitely not for the squeamish.

After the Jeffrey Dahmer story broke, it was easy to think that no one else like him ever did or ever could have lived. After all, his motive for killing was bizarre to say the least-- he wanted to keep the men he picked up from leaving him. Then a few years later I picked up Brian Masters' Killing for Company almost by chance-- It was shocking: here was Dahmer's mirror image in a quiet British civil servant named Dennis Nilson. For some reason his crimes had not been publicized in the US.

Nilson's crimes had been discovered in 1983 when the plumbing in his apartment buildng started to back up. Workmen were called in and discovered what looked like human flesh was the problem. The police questioned Nilson who confessed to his crime. He had been actively killing young men for 4 years and using their bodies in bizarre tableaus of domesticity and no one had noticed--would probably not have noticed had it not been that his plumbing couldn't handle his method of body disposal.

Masters' book does a very good job of laying out Nilson's life. It is definitely not a quickie books churned out to take advantage of a sensational crime. If you are at all interesed in the darkest, most tabu areas of the human soul this is a very interesting read.

Before there was Jeffrey Dahmer, there was - in the late 1970s and early 1980s in London - Dennis Nilsen, whose story is presented in Brian Masters' KILLING FOR COMPANY. While Nilsen was not identical to Dahmer, there being no mention of cannibalization for example, and while any cooking of body parts that took place was strictly utilitarian for the purpose of making disposal easier, he was still close enough for government work.
Nilsen is portrayed as an essentially normal if slightly colorless man, a civil servant who, while somewhat irritating personally, was quite good at his job. He did, however, have one unfortunate habit. He would pick up men younger than he at gay bars, get drunk with them and bring them home and listen to music with them. The fortunate would then spend the night and leave the next day. The less fortunate would leave in pieces after Nilsen had kept them with him for a while, in one piece though quite dead, sleeping with them, bathing them, and watching TV with them.

KILLING FOR COMPANY is written as a serious book which attempts to provide a psychoanalysis of Nilsen, to try to explain what in his past would produce a reasonably intelligent and competent man who possessed what I think we can all agree was an unusual deviation. Masters' research is extensive, his writing adult and factual.
The first part of the book deals in considerable depth with Nilsen's life as a child and a young man. This is well done and interesting as is the recounting of many of the murders he committed.

So why only two stars? Well, as hard as I tried, I couldn't finish this book. It got to the point where I was forcing myself to read it and could only read a few pages at a time. The reason is that it became really boring to me. The trial section goes on forever and became my own private death march, but I don't think that was the main problem.
Neither is the fact that the author makes extensive use of Nilsen's writings about what he became and why, in an attempt to explain him. But Masters is not a psychologist and his conclusions, while not ignorant nor necessarily wrong, have an amateur feel to them.
No, I think the main reason I finally gave up on this book, 300 plus pages into it, is that except for his spectacularly unique (until Dahmer) method of making friends, Nilsen is boring as are his writings, and, given that they are used extensively, the denseness of Masters' presentation slows the pace - and for me the interest level - to a crawl.

I actually feel that there are a number of true crime readers who may like this book, and I've tried to note the positives, but try as I might, I couldn't finish it.

I have no sympathy for Des Nielsen. The only creature I felt sympathy for is his dog Bleep. Poor little thing. Nielsen didn't even have enough sense to get her spayed.
I read most of the book, and still don't understand why Nielsen did what he did. There was no rhyme or reason for his killing. The author isn't a psychologist, yet he makes an attempt at diagnosing Nielsen. The author comes across like he had a "crush" on Nielsen. Terrible, stupid, and boring book.
I didn't finish this because it's just that boring.