The A to Z Encyclopedia of Serial Killers

Schecter and Everitt serve a smorgasbord of serial killer knowledge that you may find poorly organised, but this is in fact its strength. An alphabetically arranged reference on serial killers might be a good thing, but wouldn't be so enjoyable readable. Instead, the authors arrange their facts under a series of nearly-random headings that serve little purpose other than to keep the reader ghoulish entertained.

The A to Z Encyclopedia of Serial Killers, is not an A-Z guide to the killers as the title implies.There are no indexes or chapter guides to look up specific killers. Instead it has sections A through Z that list places and things. One would think that the individual killers would be listed under the respective letters such as Ted Bundy in the T section or in the B's under Bundy,Ted. This book rather lists (for example) in section "A" Alligators and then gives a couple paragraphs about which killer and how they were utilized in the crimes.. and in section "B" there are sections on Bathtubs and Body Parts; and yet again with a couple paragraphs each about which killer and how these items were utilized.While there are a 6-7 killers that have their own sections dedicated under the respective letters, it doesn't really matter because they are already discussed under dozens of different A-Z listings in this book. This book does have good information and fun facts, but the format doesn't allow for reasearch of individual killers.For the average reader, this is good to read a couple chapters at a time over several weeks, and you can skip around to different chapters and go back to others later. I will give this three stars as it has some good info and light hearted dark humor.

This book was extremely interesting. It highlighted some of the main aspects of serial killers. I wish it would've covered some more, lesser known ones. Nonetheless, it was a good read for me, especially since I'm studying criminal psychology. I recommend it for anyone who'd like to get more in depth into killers!

I bought this book hoping to get detailed, in depth information about many of the more famous serial killers as well as information on the different types of killer's profiles. I bought the wrong book. After reading this book cover to cover, however, I can say I was entertained and did learn some interesting facts.The book never really gets that in-depth in to WHY these people comit the crimes they comitted. It is also a little too light-hearted in places in dealing with a distasteful topic. I would have preferred a much more respectful approach to the topic.This book IS entertaining as a light read on an airplane or something like that, but there are other books on this subject that would be vastly more interesting to the discerning reader looking to learn something about serial killers.

Pretty darn good. Some of it might be a little bit dated, and it's not exhaustive (nor meant to be).

availability

It is different than the first one.Alot of repetition. But then, giving you a bigger picture.

This book is a good read, it's well written and presented with lots of information about a heap of different serial killers. Unfortunately it does become VERY repeatative after a while and you do feel like your reading the same thing over and over again, but it was written to be like that. I was dissapointed to find that there was very little information about a notorious serial killer from the 1400's named Gilles de Rais. I'm guessing that's because the authors might not have found enough information about him. Harold Schechter and David Everitt are great authors who have researched and written quite a lot about murderers, serials killers etc. so you know what they have written is as close to accurate then most. Within the first 2 days of owning this book I had finished it, I couldn't put it down. It was a fascinating read and I recommend to anyone with a keen eye for true crime books to pick this one up, I promise it wont disapoint you.

Very happy with my purchase. delivery was very quick and product was advertised and packaged appropriately so was not damaged.

Found this a bit boring

Interesting and informative book on serial killers, however from about halfway through it repeats itsself and becomes a little boring.

Quite a compendium.

Decent read but not what I expected.