Product Description

An investigative criminologist, Christopher Berry-Dee is a man who talks to serial killers. Their pursuit of horror and violence is described in their own words, transcribed from audio and videotape interviews conducted deep inside some of the toughest prisons in the world. Berry-Dee describes the circumstances of his meetings with some of the world's most evil men and reproduces, verbatim, their very words as they describe their crimes and discuss their remorse - or lack of it. This work offers a penetrating insight into the workings of the criminal mind.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16971 in Books
• Published on: 2003-05-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 349 pages

About the Author
Christopher Berry-Dean is a world-renowned investigative criminologist, and the editor of The New Criminologist magazine. He does not shy from visiting prisons to interview some of the most disturbed murderers who are behind bars - gaining their trust and delving into the depths of their minds.

Customer Reviews

Not a great deal of talking with serial killers!
I began reading this book with the notion in my head that it would provide me with an insight into a serial killers mind. The first section starts off brightly and does a good job at getting you interested in the way the book will eventually pan out. However, as I progressed I found that the title was more than a little misleading and that the first section by far and away was the best. The problem with the book is that all in all there is very little conversation with the men and women that the book is based on. The author states that he has had numerous correspondance with the subjects, sadly we see very little of this and only brief statements from the 'extensive' interviews carried out. By all means the book is brought together well and does display in great detail the lengths that these people have gone to in order to continue the killing. This though is pieced together by police records and not from the mouth of the convicts as I would have expected.
The author i have no doubts is extremely talented but I feel that the book let me down as much as I bought a bmw only to find the interior and engine of a cortina.
All in all the book is readable and is worth a look at, as long as you undersatnd it is merely 'a chat with serial killers' and not what you might expect.

Very little conversation involved
This book should be called ' Why talk to serial killers when you know everything already?' as Mr. Barry-Dee seems to think that we are far more interested in what he has to say anyway. Though he has, apparently, had a great deal of interaction with the people he discusses you would be forgiven for doubting that as he only ever includes a few words from them at the end. It is overly sensational, describing one man as 'a monster in every sense of the word'. I don't see how this can be the case, as one sense of the word is 'a mythological creature' which seems ludicrous unless we all had a mass hallucintion that this man exists. As someone who is studying to (hopefully) become a forensic psychologist, I find books like this one abhorrent as they merely serve to enhance the idea that these people are a different breed to the rest of us, which I find rediculous and not very helpful to those who wish to understand these people better. In addition to this, having read about some of the cases before, I find some of his inferences laughable. This is a man who clearly has his own agenda (pro death penalty, in my opinion). The fact that he takes pains to prove that Henry Lee Lucas is a 'liar' because he contradicts himself seems to suggest that he has little real appreciation of insanity as he judges him on far too rational terms. If you want to learn about this subject, I would suggest 'Guilty by Reason of Insanity by D. Otnow or any of the wonderfully sensative and unsensational accounts of crime wriiten by Brian Masters. Read this is you want to get all the gory details with no genuine thought attatched.

Presenting conjecture and opinion as actual fact....
A handful of short excerpts taken from interview transcripts constitute the 'conversation' with serial killers in this book. 90% of the book is Mr Berry Dee hypothesising on what actually happened, motivations and psychology, and presenting his own interpretation and opinion as actual fact. I was left feeling contempt for him because this book is mediocre, sensationalist and completely lacks credibility.

If you are looking for real insight into the criminal mind I suggest reading anything by or involving Robert Ressler or David Canter, genuine criminal profilers not authors with ideas of self grandeur and an over inflated sense of importance.

This book gets two stars instead of one because the only good thing it has going for it is that it focuses on less well-known serial killers rather than the big 5, Dahmer, Bundy, Manson, Nielsen and Gein.