Customer Reviews

The Serial Killers: A Study in the Psychology of Violence

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Yes, there are some graphic depictions of violence in this book. It is also insightful in two keys areas of human interaction, domination and personal/sexual inadequacy, particularly in regard to men needing or wanting to have control over women and their own lives. Wilson details how many must resort to violence to "prove" themselves superior and gives credible, psychological reasons for their actions.

Faisal.A.Qureshi is a fool.Don't listen to him. If he doesn't want to know about serial killers and their crimes, why read this book? No,it doesn't hold back on describing the murders in graphic detail, and that is one of the reasons that make it the great book that it is -it tells everything.The reason other books may not document the voilence in such detail is that they probably don't know as much, or dont recognize the need to encompass every element,however grim in order to create a true study. I'm researching for a screenplay I'm writing about a serial killer, and this book, more so than a dozen others, has helped give me the knowledge and inspiration I need to form my own characters. It is not only crammed full of case histories, but has an in-depth (60 page) history of the profilers and organisations such as VICAP,the BSU, and the NCAVC that over the years have been instrumental in apprehending these criminals. It offers a variety of theories about the minds and motives of the people who commit these crimes, and goes back to through history to the likes of the Marquis De Sade, Tiberius, and Caligula to illustrate its points. This is a concise, important and intelligent work that deserves far more credit than is given by Faisal.A.Qureshi,who probably just flicked through it whilst drinking his coffee in Borders.

A fascinating study which will provide background for those who enjoy TV shows like Criminal Minds and movies like Silence of the Lambs. Totally absorbing. Not for those with weak stomachs.

You know what a serial killer is, and I daresay that by the time you are reading this review a new one will have just been in the news. This book goes through some of the best known serial killers - starting with a few early ones (Gilles de Rais and Martin Dumollard), and then moving into modern times and serial killers in the modern mold - Jack the Ripper, H.H. Holmes, John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, and even the Washington Sniper.

As for me, I found this to be both an interesting and disturbing book. A short description of each killer's career is presented, including descriptions of the killer's modus operandi. What I found most interesting was how the forms of the murders tended to change over time - travelling killers, intellectual killers, sexual killers, and so forth. What I think would have made the book would have been an analysis of serial killers, what about them is similar and what about them is different. Nonetheless, it is a good book...just be careful about reading it too late at night!

(Review of Serial Killers by Colin & Damon Wilson)

Want to know more about serial killers, sex crimes, mutiliations and torture? Are you the kind of person who buy Serial Killer weekly (Issue #1 with free collectors binder and piano wire) and feel that the dark side of humanity is a subject worth exploring, that serial killers are actually quite intelligent, Nietzchean supermen? Well this book is for you!

Otherwise, stay away. Not even useful for research, this exploitive little tome graphically details all kinds of sexual violence against women that seems to be there for cheap titillation. Its the kind of book you'll see on the supermarket book rack next to 'The History of Canabalism!', 'Great Paedophiles of our Time' and 'The Vannesa Feltz Story'.

Written with some co-operation with members of the FBI Behavioural Science Unit, this book was published with the sudden interest in serial killers during the release of Silence Of The Lambs. A film that romantises and perpetuates the myth of the serial killer as a man above all others. Wilson and Seaman examine cases of killers who try and do just that. Maybe their intention was to demystify this particular myth but what we get is just graphic accounts of murder and sexual violence that verges on pornography. The kind of book that would grace the shelf of some smug armchair amatuer psychologist whose never faced true violence. Colin Wilson has written some interesting books but this isn't one of them.