Customer Reviews

Lethal Intent

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Prior to reading this book my only exposure to Aileen Wuernos was Biography and American Justice on A&E. I found the book both informative and heartbreaking. One wonders how Aileen could have become anything other than what she turned out to be. It seems that from them moment of her birth to her execution she was on a collision course with disaster. After reading this book I have no desire to see "Monster". I don't feel that anymore can be said, or that it could be said better than it was done in this book. If you are interested in Aileen Wuernos' life rather than the sensationalism her crimes became, then I highly recommend this book.

You will not find a more exhaustively reseached & readable account of Aileen Wornuos' exploits ! A very good read- highly recommended !

I really do recommend this book for people interested in the Wuornos case. Lethal Intent is a highly detailed book, starting from the very beginning of Aileen's tragic life. The book is great for trying to understand why Aileen done what she did, and in an unbiased way. Russell gives you the facts, and lets you come to your own conclusions. The story made me laugh, made me cry, and often made me angry because of the way Aileen was treated. The book is also complete with some excellent pictures of Aileen and her family. I couldn't put the book down once I started. All in all a wonderfully written book!

Sue Russell's "Lethal Intent" is difficult to rate in that it has both very good and very poor aspects. On the positive side:
1. The picture section of this book is outstanding. They are almost all of the main subject, Aileen Wuornos, including many interesting pictures from her childhood, and there is an excellent picture of her lover, Tyria Moore. Also there are none of the ubiquitous and usually boring pictures of cops, judges, etc. that are routinely found in this kind of book. I wish there had been a better picture of Wuornos as an adult, however.
2. Wuornos' story itself is fascinating, and despite the length of the book, Russell, for the most part, moves the story along well, though she occasionally bogs the story down with too much detail.
3. Russell writes the story objectively, letting the facts speak for themselves, rather than injecting herself into the story.
4. This is not a rush job. Clearly a lot of work went into the writing of this book.
5. I should make special mention of chapter 56., which is a summary of Aileen Wuornos' psychological make-up drawn from the opinions of numerous mental health professionals. It is an unbiased, well written, and highly interesting section of the book, and completes one of the book's themes which is Wuornos' psychological make-up and the factors that contributed to it. This theme and its summary are among the book's strongest points.

On the negative side:
1. The book is too long and in spots can become tedious.. It is really not necessary for Russell to include every scrap of Wuornos-related information she has gleaned, no matter how inconsequential. The police investigation is, in my opinion, the weakest part of the book; and the author repeats information on a regualar basis in this section.
2. The book contains a number of factual inaccuracies. I like to look at an atlas while I read this type of book. This helps me get a sense of the place(s) of the book and adds to the overall completeness and to my enjoyment. In "Lethal Intent" Russell mentions Boonesville, MO. There is no such city. She probably meant Boonville, MO. She also refers to Kingsley, GA and to Casanova, MI. As far as I can tell, neither of these towns exist. She may be mean either Kingston or Kingsland, GA, and possibly Casnovia, MI. Geography is an area which can be easily checked for accuracy and the failure to do so obviously calls into question the accuracy of the whole book.
Also in the area of accuracy, for example, on page 148, Russell quotes a Daytona Beach convenience store manager as saying to Wuornos, who is standing outside in the rain, "Why don't you step inside to take shelter?"
He may have told Wuornos she could come in out of the rain, but somehow I doubt that any Daytona convenience store employee ever said that exact phrase to Aileen Wuornos. This is but one example of this kind of quote.
4. The writing itself is often bad to the point of embarrassing. A few out of many possible examples: Page 377 contains the statement: "Children who have been burned and battered and tortured but who somehow rise above their deadly beginnings and end up as law abiding bank tellers." Bank tellers???!!! I found this odd enough to be laughable. This example also illustrates another of Russell's writing flaws, the regular adjective phrase used as a complete sentence. The book also is overrun with misplaced modifiers and other syntactical errors. While these do not create a misunderstanding of the author's intent, they are annoying and show a lack of professional literacy.
A few other examples of Russell's writing which reach the level of uninintended humor and, ultimatley, stupidity: On page 170, she refers to the incident when Richard Mallory is killed by Wuornos after he has picked her up hitchhiking as his "drive of death". On page 189, Russell has Wuornos firing "nine bullets into his shaking, quivering body." Was it truly shaking and quivering? This kind of irritating melodrama is a constant through this book.
Finally, in a crowning example of absurdity, on page 217 Russell reports that when Troy Burress, a delivery driver, was shot, his shirt "poignantly bore his name. Troy." Later on page 229, she says that "Poignantly, his shirt still bore his name" when his body was found.
I personally wouldn't have expected otherwise and although perhaps my sense of poignancy is underdeveloped, I found this sequence to be ridiculous to the point that I laughed out loud.

"Lethal Intent" has many fine points and many flaws. I rate it a 3 for the reasons mentioned.

 Lethal Intent by Sue Russell is true crime writing at its best. It should be the companion piece for the 2003 film Monster starring Oscar winning actress Charlize Theron. If you already are drawn to true crime writing, this work holds its own against many true crime books of the recent half century. Add Ms. Russell's account of Aileen Wuornos to Vincent Bugliosi's account of Charles Manson; Jess Walter's account of the siege at Ruby Ridge; Gerald Posner's books on the assassinations of JFK and Martin Luther King; and Stephen Singular's account of the murder of Alan Berg, to name a few.

If you were drawn into the film "Monster", you owe it to yourself to read about Wuornos' background (hereditary or environment?); her inability to a hold a person's social
interest in her for more than 15 minutes; the possible catalyst that triggered her shooting spree; and the detective work that stopped the killing. The trial was virtually ignored in the film, but Ms. Russell's narrative shows how it became a three-ring circus. Finally, you can square the movie's portrayal of the circumstances of the murders with actual interrogations and testimonies which effectively remove the romanticism away from this treacherous murderer.

I disagree with one of the reviewers' claims that the book is "very very biased" and that Ms. Russell "hated" her subject. I think the fact that Ms Russell provides possible sociological and genetic explanations without absolving the murderer of her crimes actually shows some sympathy for the killer without falling under the delusion that justice would have been better served if Wuornos were acquitted because her behavior, after all, was someone else's fault.

This one is it. While in the early stages of reading this book, I went to see "Monster". I was glad to be able to get back to a book that told a thorough story, instead of a rushed account of a tortured soul. Sue Russell did an excellent job of researching the story of Aileen Wuornos. From the begining, it grabbed the reader and never let go. I am a fan of true crime and haven't been able to get my hands on a good book for a long time now. Even Ann Rule was putting me to sleep. Without going into the life of Wuornos and giving details of the story, I will tell you this...if you like true crime...if you want to read a good book.....buy this one.

After seeing author Sue Russell on the biography channel (A&E), I decided to give the book another try. It's hard to read about the repugnant, vicious Aileen Wournos. Russell painstakingly
researched this woman's life, from childhood to execution. Wournos's saga is a blueprint for disaster; she was raised in a house of raging dysfunction. She was a boisterous child full of spunk. That energy evolved into frustration, anger, prostitution and substance abuse even before Aileen ran away from home and hit the streets. This book is intriguing, but rather lengthy - 557 pages of in depth true crime reading.

While I admire the exhaustive research that Sue Russell put into this book, I found that the book had a very judgemental, exploitave, and sensational ring to it. I would have preferred a more "unbiased" review of this woman's live. Some writers are simply more adept at this then others; they present both sides of the story (without judgement) and let the reader decide for themselves. I don't feel that she did this.

I've read countless true crime books over the years and I have never come across one where the author seems to hate their subject as much as Sue Russell does. The facts are there, this was a very disturbed woman, and she committed some truly horrific crimes, but if you hate someone this much, why even bother to spend as much time as she obviously did researching her? She has done a fantastic job at digging up facts, some of them really amazing, but from the opening sentence of this book, it's clear that she also considered Aileen Wuornos as worthless as the children in the neighborhood where she grew up. Aileen was not a saint, but I would have liked to have read a book where the author could have kept her hatred even slightly veiled. The movie Monster went for the sympathy, and this book seems to be going for the hatred. Doesn't anyone want to know an unbiased view of this mentally ill woman? I know I do, and this book wasn't it. But the amount of information Sue Russell amassed on Aileen is truly impressive. Read it for that, but ignore ( if you can), the hatred seething from the author.

I have been interested in Aileen Wuornos's story for a while and I was somewhat dissapointed with this book. For one thing it is debatable whether Wuornos could even be classified as a serial killer, she did not stalk her victims as most serial killers do and many of her crimes were an act of revenge and self-defense from "johns" who were attacking her. Prostitutes are repeatedly abused and raped by their "customers" and what's worse is that no one tends to believe their story if they report. Richard Mallory one of her victims was even convicted of prior sexual abuse and rape and the police did nothing to check this out during the investigation. Additionally, women who kill are punished at a much more severe rate than men who commit the same crime and I think the author only focused on the sensationalism of this case instead of showing the entire picture. Otherwise, the book was easy to read and very informative.