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The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers | 
 enlarge | Author: Michael Newton
Publisher: Checkmark Books
Category: Book
List Price: $19.95
Buy New: $11.50
You Save: $8.45 (42%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 43494
Media: Paperback
Edition: 2
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 515
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.7
Dimensions (in): 10.9 x 8.5 x 1.1
ISBN: 0739472496
Dewey Decimal Number: 364.152303
EAN: 9780816061969
ASIN: 0816061963
Publication Date: February 28, 2006
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
 Clean. No guts, blood, pain, or suffering. October 1, 2008
It is written like an encyclopedia! Hahaha.
It was a good simple easy read lots of basic facts.
If your looking for those shockinng details. You are not going to get it here.
The x-ray of albeit fich pelvis with the needle insterts was pretty interesting. Not much else.
Data miner September 8, 2008
According to prolific crime writer Michael Newton, 84 percent of the world's active serial killers are in the United States.
No doubt this is more a tribute to the relentless, 24/7 instincts of America's overheated information industry than to any inherent tendency to greater savagery in American folkways.
And while Newton does not assess the impact of information-gathering on perceptions, he does takes pains to rebut claims that serial killers are a modern phenomenon.
They must always have been with us. Newton says the first "documented" example was Locusta, who poisoned Emperor Claudius in ancient Rome; but both the Sumerian legend of Gilgamesh and the Anglo-Saxon poem "Beowulf" appear to describe what we would call serial killers.
But across cultures and centuries, whatever it is that motivates serial killers seems to fall into easily delimited categories, once local details are stripped away.
For example, there are "black widows" who poison husbands or family members, usually for money; "bluebeards," the male version of the black widow; plain robbers; religious fanatics; and various kinds of sexual deviates, of which the "ripper" is the most horrifying and best represented category in "The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers."
Though Newton does not say so, accounts of "werewolves" from medieval and Renaissance Europe read exactly like the cases of pedophile rippers from today's newspapers.
Whether we understand any better than the medieval jurists who blamed such brutal crimes on shape-changers is a question. We certainly subdivide the practitioners into more divisions than the medievals did: organized serial killers vs. unorganized, territorial vs. nomadic vs. stationary, solo vs. team.
But Newton is rightly skeptical of FBI "profiling," which he says has never yet led to the arrest of a serial killer. Most arrests come through routine police work, though often the killer kills many times before leaving enough evidence to identify him. (Serial killers are, by definition, secretive; unlike mass killers, who seldom bother to hide their crimes and often wait quietly to be arrested.)
The total of kills by some of these fiends certainly indicates that more police officers would not serve to lower the total number of victims.
For one thing, some of the highest (but hardest to prove) totals are run up in hospitals and nursing homes where deranged nurses and doctors (or in one instance a janitor) can kill helpless people secretly. "Baby farms" where unwed mothers used to be sent to give birth were another opportunity for repeated, easy murder, but that one has become less common with changing attitudes toward bastardy.
At the end of the encyclopedia, Newton lists several hundred active serial murder cases in which no suspect has been identified. It is an impressively scary list, although your chances of being serially killed are, compared to a lot of other unnatural ends, small.
 Well Written and Disturbing August 30, 2008
This book is pretty well written, with only a few minor complaints. First some of the region specific killers are missing such as John Norman Collins, but over all is very complete. The addition of a quick reference guide in the back that explains both solved and unsolved cases is a nice touch.
This book along with Harold Schecters Serial Killer Files make a fairly complete analysis of the more deranged and sociopathic killers out there.
I recommend this book to anyone curious about some of the most despicable people out there.
GREAT BOOK!! February 23, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
It's a pretty long read but it does contain some written material that might be inappropiate for some readers.What I really like about this book is the aspect of every serial killer which deals about their background as well as why would they committe such a crime that forever haunt us till this very day.Michael Newton does provide info that'll help us think and learn about who they are and what they are.Make no mistake that this book will give you everything you need to know about them except the only thing I wish that this book should have is more photos.Anyway,do yourself a favor and check this book out.
Great Information. December 27, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This is one of the best books availible for those interested in True Crime and the history of Serial Killers. The author has compiled a fast read and profiles for each person. Very detailed, It is a basic knowledge of the essential info. If you want more detailed profiles of certain serial killers i would recommend that you buy a book based on a certian individual.
But this is a great basic info source.
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