28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not the last word on the subject ..., May 11, 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: The Last Victim: A True-Life Journey into the Mind of the Serial Killer (Mass Market Paperback)
The idea--of assuming a false identity to entice serial killers into intimate, self-revealing correspondence--is great. Unfortunately, the execution (no pun intended) of this idea fell a bit short for me. While the writing is engaging and humorous, I found myself wishing that the book were more inclusive in its breadth and depth. For example, I think a book about this letter-writing project would be ten times more intriguing if it reproduced all the letters written on both sides, complete and unabridged, rather than just including the occasional excerpt here and there. This level of disclosure seems reasonable at least in the case of killers who have since died (e.g., Gacy). To show the full correspondence would allow readers to draw their own conclusions about the killer's mind as well as about the dynamic evolving between the correspondents.
Second, I think the book would be greatly improved by focusing on just one serial killer, Gacy, since that is apparently the only relationship that was ever really developed, and the author's correspondence with the other the other killers is so brief and incomplete as to be a distraction rather than an enhancement to the main interest.
I also would have enjoyed a deeper, subtler, and more complex (hence more haunting) analysis by the author as to how his contact with the killers (Gacy in particular) came to work itself on his own psyche--and how it brought the author into contact with his own dark side. The author conveys his own presence in mostly light, glib, and humorous tones, repeatedly implying that he himself is "normal" and thus capable of empathizing with the killers only up to a point. Surely an author with this particular fascination, and with Moss' obvious intelligence and imagination for getting a feel for unusual personalities, must have a fair amount of psychological meanness in his own shadow in order to recognize it in others. For example, it was clear to me throughout--though never seriously considered by the author--that the author shared with his killer pals the following personality characteristics: a gift for and a delight in deception, manipulation, and mental game-playing; the propensity to regard others (his correspondents) as objects to be toyed with for his own amusement; a love of control, of maintaining a one-up, omniscient/omnipotent, and predatory position vis-a-vis the other; and the arrogance of thinking he can pull off the "perfect crime."
I give the book 4 stars because it's a great concept and the writing is capable and entertaining as far as it goes. But I can't give it 5 stars because an altogether deeper and more serious account of the project would have taken it so much farther!
Maybe when the author is older he can rethink the material and come up with a more substantial version of this experience which is very unusual and worth telling.
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19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
The Last Victim Revisited, July 16, 2006
This review is from: The Last Victim: A True-Life Journey into the Mind of the Serial Killer (Mass Market Paperback)
I read this book when it was originally published. I knew the author and his family quite well so my mind was probably more receptive to it being a "great" book. Alas, upon re-reading it, I realize that it is not a "great" book at all but a fairly mediocre one. It is obviously written by a "first time" author and has an almost child-like narrative form. To give credit where it is due, however, it is nonetheless, disturbing and the guy had guts. I am sad to report that the author took his own life in early June of this year. That is the reason that I decided to read this book again to see if I could find any insight into why he would do this tragic thing...I think I did.
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47 of 58 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
The Last Victim? How about the Biggest Ego?, June 7, 2000
This review is from: The Last Victim: A True-Life Journey into the Mind of the Serial Killer (Mass Market Paperback)
I was not sure whether this book was intended to be an insight into the mind of a killer, or a self-congratulations to the author on his supreme intelligence. While the subject matter of the book itself was very intersting, I was so overcome with dislike for the author that it ruined the entire book. This book is riddled with stories and comments regarding the defendant's intelligence and how "even as a teenager adults were always underestimating him" complete with a story on how he got one over on a stupid adult. Further, he repeatedly criticizes his parents, the same parents who seem to be funding his college education, all the while explaining how intelligent he is and what a wonderful, if over-protective brother he has always been. He is in fact so overprotective that he provides not one, but many serial killers their home address. Including Richard Ramirez, who maintains contact with many satanic cults, including those in the Las Vegas area, where Jason Moss and his lucky family reside. He even goes so far as to communicate with John Gacy while impersonating his brother. Wow, we should all be so fortunate as to have a relative who brings serial killers into our lives. It is bad enough that he is so ignorant as to believe that he can risk involving himself with these persons, but to involve your family and, in particular a younger sibling is disgraceful. Finally, I find it extemely offensive that he refers to himself as the Last Victim, in particular John Wayne Gacy's Last Victim. He is his own victim and until his ego recedes some, he will probably remain so.
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