Customer Reviews

The Last Victim: A True-Life Journey into the Mind of the Serial Killer

5 star:		(87)
4 star:		(40)
3 star:		(29)
2 star:		(33)
1 star:		(55)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

This book fascinated me. I tend to go with my gut instincts about booksd rather than on-line reviews. I read the reviews AFTER I read the book. This is a book that is perplexing in that there's no way to find out if any of it is true. Are the original letters hanging around? Did someone hear the alleged tape from Gacy? Things along those lines. I zipped right through the book and was totally riveted but Mr. Moss does come across as being a little too big for his britches. And, now to find out that he committed suicide makes me wonder if he, perhaps, couldn't live up to or struggled with, the monster he had created. Sad.

As a physician who is involved in Forensics I found this book to be very disturbing.The problem being that it isn't the book that is so disturbing as the author. Serial killers frequently have a history of 1.Bed wetting,2. Cruelty to animals 3. Fire starting and 4.manipulative and self serving behavior. Jason talks about his experiences with cruelty to animals.His depersonalization of his girlfriend is downright pathologic.His self serving use of his brother and family is shameless. Jason seek help now.

Extremely unimpressed with Mr. Moss and Mr. Moss' book. Nearly a full 75% of the book is about this snot nosed kid who does nothing but whine about his life, his mother, his girlfriend, etc. He goes on about his own intelligence ad nauseum. It was getting to the point where if he mentioned his odd fascination with true crime books one more time I was going to have to scream.

Perhaps if he had had this ghost written, by someone who knew what they were doing, he could have produced a much better book. As it stands, the book is for the most part boring. I also believe that he embellished some parts of the book. If you look at his picture and then read the supposed tale of his encounter with Mr. Gacy you'll understand what I'm saying.

I have never in my life, until this book, ever thrown one away. This book went straight into the trash- where it belongs.

Save your money, pass this one by in a hurry.

I found this work the product of a very disturbed and obsessed individual. To say the least, his book of one of self-lamentation without real substance. The subject, albeit interesting, is a foolish quest for self-glory. It seems that if one penetrates this sophomoric tale of a less than competent student, you find that Moss learns little. The only residue that one can take from this book is a sexually repressed; obsessive individual consumed by narcissism who thought he would get his kicks screwing with very deadly people.

As other reviewers have noted, this book is a fascinating page-turner.

But Mr. Moss's "golly, gee-whiz" attitude is insulting and false. No 18-year-old who had read about serial killers is that naive. He carefully crafted the personas he presented to these serial killers and heavily researched each of them. To be then "repulsed" "surprised" and "furious" when they react to him as he set them up to, is dishonest. He intentionally presented himself to Gacy exactly like one of Gacy's victims. When Gacy then responds to him in kind, Mr. Moss is falsely outraged.

Although Mr. Moss was an 18-year-old who admittedly got in over his head, he spent great pains to research what he was doing. Unlike the "victim" he claims to be, he was much more like the serial killers -- he planned his actions methodically, wanted (and got) a specific kind of response, and knew what he was doing.

To call himself a "victim" and equate himself with those who were killed and unknowingly walked into a spider's web is an inhumane slap in the face to the victims and their families.

Like Jason, I have had a long-time interest in true crime books and read anything I can get my hands on about serial killers. I hadn't considered that I was addressing my fears until Jason pointed out that was what he was doing reading all this stuff. I found the book to be as engrossing as those by Ann Rule and others. However, I was extremely skeptical about the description of Jason's prison visits with John Wayne Gacy. Maybe I just don't want to believe that serial killers are allowed contact visits with potential victims. I always thought there would be a glass partition and phones involved whenever someone on death row received visitors (afterall, what would they have to lose by attacking or killing you? They already have a date with death.) I wasn't surprized, like some other reviewers seemed to be, that these master manipulators would take Jason's "bait" and try to further their sick ways on the outside through him. If these guys didn't believe that they were smarter than everyone else and could bend anyone to their will, they would never have done the sick things they did.

Reading some of the previous reviews it's apparent that the author Jason Moss rubbed many the wrong way, I have to wonder though if these readers read the prologue and afterword by Kottler. This book was written by a young man looking back on his experiences, attitudes, beliefs, etc. when he was 18, give the guy a break. I personally found the book engrossing and very suspenseful as well as an intresting insight into the young driven mind of a motivated young man driven to prove himself. The Last Victim is an entertaining and interesting break from the usual true-crime books which tend to sound either sensational or read like a police report. Jason Moss has given us a truly unique and different perspective of the twisted souls that repel and draw us at the same instant into their dark worlds. A definite reccomended read!