Customer Reviews

Red Ripper

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What makes Chikatilo fascinating is that it took so long for him to be caught, and the reasons for this delay. He was incredibly lucky, in some ways, but the structure of laws, customs and means of communication in the Russia of the time are the real reasons for his long career as a killer. Conradi explains all of this clearly. What is not so clear are the details of how all of the info he presents was acquired. Did the author have access to confession documents, or interrogation documents? If so, the readers would sure like to see them included in the book. Overall, a very readable, informative book.

Conradi's book is not too bad. My biggest problem with it is that it is subtitled "Russia's monster serial killer and the men who stopped him." This is somewhat misleading, as there is very little about the policemen and the detectives who stopped him.

On the positive end though, one will find few books anywhere that spend so much time discussing the mindset of a killer in such detail. Conradi does a masterful job recreating the horrific crimes. And even though the psychiatric interview at the end is extremely tedious in the first couple of pages, the summary is well worth the time.

Bizzare on both ends, the killer as well as the cops. If you like serial killer books this is unbelieveable!