Product Description

What is it that turns someone into a cold blooded killer? It is more than evil, more than bad genes, more than horrible childhoods. In this volume the stories reveal the complexities of abnormal human behaviour. In some cases the reason appears to be psychosis or demonic voices, for other over-powering compulsions with deep psychological roots, and for some killing is foreplay to sex. BORN TO BE KILLERS includes Ted Bundy, Jack the Ripper, Lizzie Borden, Robert Durst to name a few...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1071466 in Books
• Published on: 2004-03-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 576 pages

About the Author
Ray Black is an investigative journalist based in Brighton. He has spent the past 25 years specialising in police cases, crimes and criminals and has written many highly regarded newspaper and magazine articles about his investigations

Customer Reviews

No wonder it's anonymous
The most extraordinary thing about this book is that it's anonymous. I don't remember coming across a book with neither an author nor an editor mentioned anywhere - until I discovered this one. But I think I know why.

Incidentally, my copy is the second reprint of 2005. I suppose it's possible that the original (2004) version mentioned the name of the editor/author.

I suspect it was the work of several people. I hesitate to call them writers - the style varies from semi-literate to illiterate. The 50 or so chapters are riddled with grammatical and punctuation errors. It's also worth mentioning that there's precious little evidence of proof-reading.

There has also been some sloppy updating - presumably to reflect events since the original was published. The chapter on Dr Harold Shipman informs us that he is in prison in County Durham. But two pages on, the same chapter says he died in Wakefield Prison.

The best thing one can say about the book is that it is well structured. A section on children who kill is followed by one on men who kill. The third part, on women who kill, is followed by - you guessed it - the final section, on couples who kill. And most of the case studies ends with a few words of 'analysis'. Unfortunately this is usually a trite reference to a childhood event or mention of 'conflicting theories'. And then sometimes the 'academic' narrative will descend into the colloquial, such as the chapter on Larry Swartz: "Luckily for Larry, the judge at his trial was quite a softie, and actually felt sorry for the lad who had had such a traumatic upbringing."

So what we have is an apparently winning combination - stories of people displaying extremes of human behaviour plus analysis that sets out to explain why they became killers - spoiled by stylistic abominations, proof-reading gaffes and superficiality. Little wonder, then, that the editor and his contributors seemingly had their names erased from the 2005 reprints.

If I could give 0 stars, I would
The most shocking thing about this book is the fact that TimeWarner let it go out in this state. I have the 2004 first edition, which has no author details or editor details. As the other reviewer says, it's no wonder they didn't want to put their name to this book.
There are so many mistakes, to be honest, I feel like writing to TimeWarner and asking for my money back.
In the section on the murder of Shanda Sharer, one of the girls involved in the murder (Melinda Loveless) is twice referred to as Amanda - her girlfriend, who played absolutely no part in the murder.
There are numerous spelling mistakes - "Pscyho" under a picture of Ed Gein, "wretch" instead of retch, "the" instead of he, "were" instead of where. In the chapter on Lizzie Borden, 4 times it is spelled "Bordon" instead of Borden.
There are formatting mistakes - expanses of white space where there shouldn't be.
The incorrect punctuation, poor grammar and terrible sentence construction was so bad, it made me want to burn the book in protest. For example, on pg 366 -
"In this North England setting, Shipman seemed change drastically he became an outgoing, respected member of the community."
There are full stops where question marks should be, which is really irritating.
There are several instances of words repeated in sentences - "...accidentally killing himself after a pipe bomb he was building accidentally blew up in his face," which made me want to scream.
I was confused in loads of places - in the chapter on Raymond Fernandez, one of the Lonely Hearts killers, he is mistakenly referred to as Robert 5 times. I was like, "who the &(*% is Robert?"
This isn't even first draft material, and some of the research done was a bit dodgy too, at one point Fred West's childhood is described as normal, when, in fact, his Dad was abusing his daughters, and Fred got his own sister pregnant.
This book is, without doubt, the worst book I have ever read. It reads like a collection of badly written essays by different students. It is impossible to concentrate on the stories because of the terrible writing.