AnyBook4Less.com	Find the Best Price on the Web Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Home  |  Store List  |  FAQ  |  Contact Us  |
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money Keyword AuthorISBN

Title: Killers Among Us: Motives Behind Their Madness by Damon Colin/Wilson Wilson ISBN: 0-446-60327-9 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: 01 October, 1996 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $7.50

Your Country USA Canada United Kingdom Australia Austria Belgium France Germany Italy Netherlands Switzerland Currency AutoUSD CAD GBP EUR AUD CHF Delivery Only cheapest delivery All delivery options Include Used Books Are you a club member of: Barnes and Noble Books A Million Chapters.Indigo.ca

Average Customer Rating: 3.86 (7 reviews)

Rating: 2
Summary: This book is so-so
Comment: I agree with the previous reviewer. This book is mediocre. Dates are inconsistent (see page 305). The book is all over the place. So many times I had to go back pages to make sense of the authors cronolgical order. If you can stand the frustration, I recommend this book only because there are stories on the lesser known serial killers that did not make the famous grade.

Rating: 4
Summary: Not a Bedside Book!
Comment: Colin Wilso is an author interested in extraordinary human beings. Having read some of his other books, I read this one, my first "true crimes" book ever.

It is a survey of some of the worst serial killers of the last forty years or so. An initial perusal of the book had me perplexed as to why there were so little devoted to Charles Manson. Having finished the book, I now know why. Manson is a girl-scout compared to some of these serial killers!

I wish that Wilson had speculated as to why we are fascinated with serial killers. Part of the reason may be that we, "normal people", are so regimented that we secretly admire (in some ways) those who go outside of societies norms. Certainly we read these accounts, for the same reason that some of the criminals commit them...we are bored.

Interestingly, Wilson posits that murder follows a sort of shadow-side hierarchy of needs, as proposed by Abraham Maslow.
Previously murder might have been committed to attain certain basic needs like food or sex, but nowadays it is carried out as an attempt to self-actualize. Wilson also points out that serial killing has risen with the age of equality. Society gives lip service to "equality" but this turns out to be a sham in light of the disparities of wealth and notoriety. About this, Wilson comments that most serial killers are from working-class bacgrounds, and the crimes are committed as a way to acheive the status that eludes them in society at large.

This book is a survey and does not go into great depth with any particular serial killer. Frankly, it goes into enough detail for me and I wouldn't care for a huger dose of gore.

Only "glitch" that I noticed...Wilso cites the case of a murder in Sweden carried out by a man who has been put into a hynotic trance by another man. Wilso, who has studied the paranormal for over 30 years, should know that you cannot cause a person to do under hypnosis anything that he would be against.

Other than that, it was a good introduction to this genre.

Thomas

Rating: 4
Summary: Audacious
Comment: Ambition to kill is what these serial murderers live to
each day. Hatred, power, control, and vengeance is what
the motives of these powerful killers annihilate for.
Descriptive facts of how and why murderes killed gives
us a powerful insight to what they perceive.

Similar Books:

	Title: The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers by Michael Newton ISBN: 0816039798 Publisher: Facts on File, Inc. Pub. Date: April, 2000 List Price(USD): $19.95
	Title: Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper -- Case Closed by Patricia Cornwell ISBN: 0399149325 Publisher: Putnam Pub Group Pub. Date: 11 November, 2002 List Price(USD): $27.95