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Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters |  | Author: Peter Vronsky
Publisher: Berkley Trade
Category: Book
List Price: $16.00
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Seller: nw-emerald-city-books
Rating:  16 reviews
Sales Rank: 15997
Media: Paperback
Edition: Trade edition
Pages: 432
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6 x 1
ISBN: 0425196402
Dewey Decimal Number: 364.1523019
EAN: 9780425196403
ASIN: 0425196402
Publication Date: October 5, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
The comprehensive examination into the frightening history of serial homicide.
In this unique book, Peter Vronsky documents the psychological, investigative, and cultural aspects of serial murder, beginning with its first recorded instance in Ancient Rome, through fifteenth-century France, up to such notorious contemporary cases as cannibal/necrophile Ed Kemper, Henry Lee Lucas, Ted Bundy, and the emergence of what he classifies as the "serial rampage killer" such as Andrew Cunanan.
Vronsky not only offers sound theories on what makes a serial killer, but also provides concrete suggestions on how to survive an encounter with one-from recognizing verbal warning signs to physical confrontational resistance. Exhaustively researched with transcripts of interviews with killers, and featuring up-to-date information on the apprehension and conviction of the Green River Killer and the Beltway Snipers, Vronsky's one-of-a-kind book covers every conceivable aspect of an endlessly riveting true-crime phenomenon.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 16
 Superb June 8, 2009
Joseph J. Sabet (Brea, California)
Vronsky is a great story teller and gives a thorough analysis of serial killing and the perpetrators. Like others have said, the book is hard to put down. If you have many books on the subject, few or none, pick this book up. You won't regret it.
 Nice Overview May 19, 2009
Deborah Akers (Southeastern U.S.)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Peter Vronksy's "Serial Killers" is a good overview of serial killers and what makes them tick. The book is filled with case studies of famous serial killers, as well as some thumbnail sketches of less famous killers. To be honest, I would have been more interested in reading about the lesser-known killers, as yet another retelling of Ted Bundy isn't really needed at this point. The first chapter of the book is fairly boring, filled with statistics and conjecture. The book picks up speed toward the middle and doesn't really slow down from then on out. My stomach turned at some of the descriptions of victims in the book, and I realized that perhaps I learned more about some of these killers and their deeds than I had wanted.
A warning: there are some very graphic photos in the middle of the book that I now wish I hadn't seen as they are very explicit. You may want to skip the picture section if you are squeamish.
Interesting from start to finish January 18, 2009
Shawna Mc Closkey
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book is such an easy read and it is so interesting. The only boring part is the section of statistics. He describes the killers so very well and it is cool that he includes quotes from the killers. Great book do not recommend if you are a easily frightened because some of the content is disturbing.
 It Was "The Other Guy Tilt" Who Done It July 6, 2008
R. Schultz (Chicago)
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
The subtitles of this book promise a lot, but the book hardly delivers on those promises. Given that there really is still so little insight into the psychology of most serial murderers, a lot of the uncertainly here could have been excused if we hadn't been lured into these pages with the cover's promise of "definitiveness" dangled in front of us like candy from a stranger.
The beginning chapters are especially disappointing. They are full of loosely written anecdote, repetitions, backtrackings, and citations of contradictory statistics. There was a recent spike in serial killings; any spike in killings is more apparent than real, probably a function of recording/classifying technique. Serial killers are actually a very rare phenomenon, there only having been 399 in recorded history; serial killers can and probably have lurked ubiquitously, brushing past us all the time, hidden behind facades of normalcy. The reader is ping-ponged between such opposing assertions. Also, statistical breakdowns sometimes confusingly add up to either more or less than 100%.
While the writing remains generally loose, almost to the point of being sloppy throughout, things do improve as Vronsky gets into case studies. He has a particularly long section on Ted Bundy, providing a few insights that didn't come out in the excellent movie, "The Deliberate Stranger," and that didn't get generally circulated. It's the same with Ted Kaczynski, the "Unibomber" whom it's revealed might have been gulled into participating in potentially dangerous and disorienting LSD experiments done at Harvard.
He also has a fairly good section on John Wayne Gacy in which he quotes Gacy as maintaining that it was "the other guy tilt" who killed all the youths found in his crawl space. Actually, that phrase, "The Other Guy Tilt" with its unstudied, sharply akimbo connotations, would have been a better title for this book than the misleadingly conclusive and academic titles that Vronsky chose.
Even with the case studies, there is something to be disappointed about though. The reader might wish that Vronksy had spent less time on already well-documented lives, and had probed more into the backgrounds of killers who got less media coverage, at least in the U.S. There are so many (such as Dr. Marcel Petiot) who are disposed of in thumbnail sketches, even though their elaborate techniques might have provided a gateway into the murderer's mind.
One gets the feeling Vronsky wanted to put something sensational and saleable on the market as quickly as possible, and didn't want to be bothered doing any difficult, original researches. He settled for second-hand sources, then jotted something down.
However, the book did hold my interest. Some of the last chapters provided especially valuable correctives to the impression of forensic infallibility we get from modern TV shows and movies. For example, Vronsky points out some of the failings of the FBI's classification systems.
On the whole, this book is worth reading, but there are probably better-researched volumes on serial killers out there.
Serial Killers for one and all! March 6, 2008
D. Emmel (Snohomish, WA United States)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Ever since I first read "The Stranger Beside Me", the ground-breaking book about the serial killings of Ted Bundy, so brilliantly written by Ann Rule, I have read lots of true crime books covering serial killers.
This is one of the best books I've seen covering the topic of serial killers, and is well worth the read. It is truly an educational and well-written study of a stranger who may be beside us!
Showing reviews 1-5 of 16
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