World famous Serial killers

I loved this book. I think I am psycho too.

I thought I would read this book before sleeping. In fact, that’s the time I do most of my reading. In the bus, while coming home from work and an hour or so before sleeping. But I read the introduction (about 5-6 pages) and couldn’t read any further. I am not the squeamish type. I love watching ‘New detectives’ and ‘Case Files’ on discovery. But this was a little too much for me, all at once. I didn’t want to dream about serial killers and murderers. I decided to read it in parts.

Before describing all the “World famous” serial killers, the authors describe what serial killing means and the history of it.

Serial killing supposedly started in the 19th century and mostly it had to do with sexual assault. In 16th and 17th century, the prostitutes were available really cheap, so no body thought of killing anyone for that purpose. For me it was a little hard to digest, but still.

Thomas Piper, in a way, was regarded as the world’s first serial killer. He was involved in murders and rapes of several children. Apparently women used poison to commit serial killings. The authors give many examples. A Dutch nurse named Van Der Linden, poisoned more than a 100 people. I mean do you believe that?

Serial killing: a kind of obsessive repetitiveness that resembles a hiccup. What causes it? Some religiously inclined people suggested that a demon had got into them. Whatever the answer, there seems to be no doubt that murder can become an addiction, and that most serial killers are, in some sense, ‘driven by a demon’.

The book begins with the very famous ‘Jack the ripper’. But this case in the 18th century is not as detailed as the later ones. The book is divided into sections. There is a section for psychopathic killers, high IQ killers. And then they are divided according to British and American serial killer cases. I don’t want to give the details of every serial killing. They are as detailed as they can be. But I don’t have the heart to remember them and write them down.

The book mentions an autobiography called “Killer, A journey of murder” by Carl Panzram. He was a serial killer. He had a very bad childhood and he had a resentment towards everyone else which in turn resulted into him killing people.

Most of the killers had a very bad and abusive childhood and somehow the authors feel that this lead them to do whatever they did. I don’t necessarily disagree with that. Not that all people who had a bad childhood are mentally unstable but the vice versa could be true.

I am amazed by how many murders these people got away with. At how cold hearted they were at killing people, cutting and stuffing their bodies in places and even killing children.

The book Hannibal was inspired by a true serial killing episode. Somehow that knowledge creeps me out.

I was very excited to read this book first. But now, excitement is far from what I feel. I feel disgusted to even say that I liked reading this book. Something is clearly wrong with me. I am passing this book to my boyfriend. He is excited to read it too. Birds of the same feathers flock together. What say?

Would you read this book? Or would you even pick it from a bookstore?

Sorry for not leaving the author names (The book is with J and I can’t find the book on google. Strange. I’ll ask him for the authors and update later)