Product Description

This collection has over 70 chapters which deal with such subjects as arson; blackmail and conmen; mass murder, mad messiahs and murderous millionaires; sabotage, stick-ups and suicide.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #107609 in Books
• Published on: 1998-08-27
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 608 pages

Customer Reviews

A great and informative introduction to the History of Crime
This book is an absoulutly great read. Not only will it tell you about some of the grimmest crimes in history like Ed Gein, Ian Brady and john christie at 10 Rillington place, but also it delves in to some of the weirdest crimes such as Matthew Lovat the shoemaker that publicly attemped to crucify himself, the man that sold the eiffal tower and the woman that impersonated the pope! One of the great things about this book is that it doesn't just look at the crime from one point of view or has one concluestion but it also goes into the pshcology a bit. It is also extreamly informative about genaral history and tells you interesting facts about things. So dispite it being a few years old and missing out on some of the more recent crimes such as james bulgers killing, it is still a great read.

interesting however few issues
The book seems daunting when you pick it up as it is so big however the 70 chapters do break it down into readable sections. The book has a lot of interesting stories and i did enjoy reading it.

However... several examples are used a lot within different chapters so it gets repetative. There are also spelling and grammatical errors throughout the book which should have been picked up by author and editor.

For me there is not enough detail in the examples; its good to have all the examples given in each chapter, yet the lack of detail means that the theory of the chapter can be lost as you dont know what actually happened in the situation. I would have liked all the chapters to have had less examples but in more detail.

On the whole a good basic book to read but not one to base any studies on.

Sometimes scary, Always informative, Never dull.
As the other reviewer says, this book may not be totally up-to-date but that doesn't matter as the information it does hold is expansive and thoroughly engrossing.