Customer Reviews

Lustmord: The Writings and Artifacts of Murderers

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"Lustmord" The Writings and Artifacts of Murderers" Edit. Brian King, Burbank: Bloat Publ. Co., 1996. ISBN 0-9650324-0-X PB 314 pp., is a panoply of 37 murderers (with and without accomplices) whose crimes, chronicled in alphabetical order, are substantially written in the 1st person or snared from their confessions, self portrayls, or proclammations. The text is decently acccompanied by useful bibliography.
Unlike most books on crimes and criminals, Brian King (?fittingly) chose to have the book's preface written by serial killer Herbert Mullin. "Lustmord" is Germanic and candidly translates to "pleasure killing" -- the book is replete with such accounts, often told in such minute sordid details that elements of OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) appear tantamount in a number of cases.
This is not a book one must read sequentially, i.e., cover-to-cover, since the organization is extrinsic, simply alphabetical. Most cases occurred after WW II, the majority were in the US, a few in the UK. In "Lustmord" the themes of gross sexual perversion and banality become entwined with a variety of schizophrenic and schizoid behaviours and oft times sheds suggestive insight into possible origins of goaded deviancy. I suggest the book be reserved for readers with at least a modest background in medicine or psychology - it is truly morbid. Alternativly, it does serve as an excellent reference source for information on the graceless and muddled deranged eccentricitiies of the "worst of the worst".

This is a very fascinating book is worth reading. The writings and artwork of some thirty-seven murderers are contained in this book including Berkowitz, DeSalvo, Fish, Glatman, Heirens, Panzram, Schaefer, Starkweather, and the Zodiac just to name some of the more familiar ones. Good way to get into the mind of a psychopath from his own point of view. The writings are presented in a fairly nonsensationalizing fashion which lets us educate ourselves without insulting the victims. Pat Brown/Director/Investigative Criminal Profiler/The Sexual Homicide Exchange, Inc.

This compilation of extracts includes the scribblings, poems, memoirs, short stories, confessions and observations of real-life "pleasure-killers" or "lustmurderers". They range from the writings of killers who are sometimes professional writers, to the barely articulate and even the semi-literate. In a way that easily surpasses the best of what "sane" literature has produced in an attempt to approximate the bestiality of crime, these documents are authentic descriptions of the violence, revenge, celebrity and anti-social dysfunction reaped by modern murderers. What makes this collection unique is that it magnifies what can be called "the fine art of murder", in delineating the "artistic" side of killing. In treating their atrocities and crimes in the spirit of literature, these killers, who comprise rapists, mutilators, cannibals and serial psychopaths, emphasise the act of murder considered for its decidedly "aesthetic" component, if one chooses to adopt this term as a synonym for the natural, the realistic, the sublime, or any term that otherwise serves to designate what moves us deeply. It can be unsettling that such confused, loveless, brutal and genuinely mad individuals can be placed in the category of "creative people", to share in the qualities that have distinguished true literary personalities: obssession, revolt, anguish, conscientiousness, paranoia, narcissim, even a sense of vision. From a clinical point of view, such literature is immensely rich and rewarding, in not only concretely illustrating various states of "pathology", but drawing to our attention a form of art that is simultaneously a weapon of psychic insurrection, or a uniquely transformative act of the criminal's stance towards society. Just as much as a deranged criminal a product of civilisation, so is he, in his efforts as an artist, also an attempt to overcome it.

It's hard to really say that I "enjoyed" this book, but it definitely kept me up late at night reading. The twisted and tortured workings of a murderer's mind, collected here for your reading pleasure. Some of it is terrible (William Bonin's awful "sentimental" stories about preteen boys), some of it is revolting (rope fetishist Gerald Schaeffer rhapsodizing over the sex appeal of dead bodies, cannibal Albert Fish's deeply perverted letters), some of it is genuinely amusing (Charles Schmid's hilarious faux beatnik prose) and a great deal of it is absolutely riveting (Carl Panzram's amazing autobiography, Charles Starkweather's account of his childhood). Essential for crime buffs.

Man I loved this book. First off the print is extra tiny--a bit of a strain on the eyes but otherwise allows HOURS of entertaining and disturbing reading. Among the absolutely incredible accounts are included a piece by Issei Sagawa (the Japanese Cannibal) who describes -- in DETAIL -- what it is like to kill and then EAT a woman (including spices and techniques, ugh!). Unforgettable. And by all means don't miss the sadistic creepiness of Gerard J. Schaefer, a real loser who was a deputy sherrif that stalked mostly teenaged girls...includes his depraved sketches as well. My other favorites are Albert Fish and Carl Panzram, but the overwhelming majority are quite fascinating.

This is a great book!

More horrifying than any fiction, and very sad, too.

Despite the print being very small, this is one of the best books I have purchased in years.

...and that's no exaggeration. Yes, the print is very small and that might be a problem for some. However, if you can deal with it, the entire collection of Carl Panzram's writings is in here, and that's just impressive. True, he murders the English language, but that just adds to the rawness of it.

This is basically a collection of writings from murderers, word for word, with no corrections for spelling or grammar. Some of them are famous in true crime circles, others are very obscure. And by very obscure, I mean you've likely never heard of them before. Much of what is written is quite bizarre and is not necessarily about murder--it's kind of just a peek into the minds of these people who've killed, as evidenced by what they've written. There's some background information given beforehand for each case, which puts things in some context. It would have been nice if more info on some of the cases had been included (like the Schizophrenic Firesetter and Mr. Brown, two really weird examples), but what was given was good. There are also some strange pictures and drawings interspersed with the writing, including the ransom notes by William Edward Hickman and a lot of the Zodiac killer's letters.

I don't know how many pages this book would have been if the font were bigger, but it would be HUGE. You usually see the opposite of this when it comes to changes in font, with publishers jacking up the font size like highschoolers trying to trick their teacher into thinking a report is bigger than it is. Not here. Here, if your eyes are good, you get your money's worth.

Not all the material in the book is violent or graphic, but I found the majority of it to be very dark and extremely bizarre. This book is unique and is well worth a buy. Also, I've read it many, many times--I've had it for about 10 years and it's held up pretty well. I tend to be hard on books, and some of my favorites have fallen apart after repeated handling. Not this one. It might have a different binding these days, but I'm not sure if it's still even in print. Anyway, this is my all-time favorite true crime book, and it's WELL worth a buy.

First off, I'll just state my number one beef - the text print is so small you'll need the eyes of a hawk just to read the pages. Seriously, I've never even seen a published work with such small print. Think, maybe, 6 pt. font. That's a shame. Beyond that, the material vacillates between mundane and fascinating. So many of the authors have spates of lucidity and then suddenly fall of into a demented alternative reality. Many of the writings are a real testament, as well, to the power of self-aggrandizement and delusion. The ones that creeped me out the most were those with no real score to settle, no history of abuse, and no feeling one way or the other if the victim lived or died. Unfortunately, King's organization doesn't illuminate. He's trying to take a hands-off approach and let the correspondence speak for itself - I get it. Still, my sentiment is that the reader deserves a thesis of some sort, however minor.

very interesting, doesnt hold anything back. i found it better to read a case or two at a time and come back whenever the mood hit me. this is a nice conversation piece something that people will certainly ask you about. its out of print by the way. i had it in my cart for a couple of weeks, it sold and the next one i found was about 5 bucks more. small print!!

Lustmord is a strange book to try to quantify. The book is a collection of the writings and artwork of thirty-seven murderers. Th writings reveal the inner workings of the disturbed mind in all of its forms. The writers are disturbed and often delusional in their outward view of the world.

There are a few problems with the volume. The editor, Brian King does not do such a great job af setting the stage in all cases. Often we are left with a group of writings taken out of context and hard to decipher. Many of the participants are illiterate or very nearly so. More editing is needed to make the reading easier. Also there is a feel of overkill about the book. We are presented with much more information than we really need to keep the material interesting. The book also uses a font style that is so small that the narrative is hard to read.

The reader needs to be warned that this is graphic material that is certainly not for everyone. The editor himself calls the material morbid in his brief introduction. With that warning the book does present a detailed look at the disturbed worldview of the murderer.