disappointing and misogynistic writing

I bought this as I have recently watched the TV show "Mindhunter" and I thought it might be quite interesting in the same kind of way...

However within the first five minutes I realised it wasn't going to be all I'd hoped...

The writing was intensely misogynistic... some examples :

- The classic "blame the killer's mother". It doesn't matter if the father used to beat him and give him money to torture animals, the mother was "controlling and overbearing" so naturally it's her fault that her son grew up to murder women. (A theme we see again and again).

- Refers to the anal rape of a corpse as "intercourse". Another theme we see over and over, which I find deeply troubling... Can we just call it rape and or necrophillia please?

- Writer says a victim "signed her death warrant" when she told her rapist Ross that she recognised him.

- Writer calls two fourteen year old children "young women" before saying "this childish deception would cost them their lives" (because they had told their parent's they were being picked up when they were actually walking home) NO, what cost them their lives was a man's decision to take it from them.

- Refers to female students as "co-eds".

These are just a few examples... The whole book uses victim blaming and sexist language from the mouth of the writer, not just the killers!

Also on top of all this dangerous nonsense, the information just isn't that interesting - it's not getting inside the minds of the killers, it's just a graphic description of their crimes as told by them, the ethics of which are questionable.

Then there's the performance of the narrator. It sounds like it's being read by Alan Partridge. Especially when he starts to put on dodgy accents.

There are much better quality podcasts than this available on the topic, go for that instead!

100 people found this helpful

Ruined by the narrator

I had to force myself to finish listening so that the money I paid would not go to waste. A disjointed, confusing and often dull account of interviews with killers that jumps erratically from one time period to the next. Colin Mace butchers the book with his horrendous imitation of characters featured, most of them American. His accent is Forrest Gump-like and makes a parody of this typically sombre topic. He goes as far as to attempt a falsetto when reading lines from women, and even puts on a rather offensive Asian accent. His performance progresses from being mildly irritating in early chapters to almost unbearable by the end of the book. The entire thing is made more frustrating by the fact that you know they have piles of true audio on hand, but deign to let us listen to only snippets placed at the start of some chapters. Do yourself a favour and skip this one.

13 people found this helpful

Disturbing, to the point and informative

After listening to multiple of the authors work, its safe to say that if you want to get into the minds of killers and have it explained in a down to earth, no rubbish and intriguing fashion and fantastic VO of Colin Mace, then look no further.

12 people found this helpful

Interesting book, some weird quirks in narration

This is an interesting book for those who want to know more about the crimes of some prolific serial killers. The narration is generally good, however the repeated mispronunciation of the words "homicide" and "Michigan" was like nails down a chalkboard to me.

5 people found this helpful

Sickening tales of serial killers

Author Christopher Berry-Dee has made a career from writing about serial killers following his extensive research, correspondence, discussions with law enforcement officers, family members and survivors and meetings in prison with the killers. He is the editor of the New Criminologist Magazine and director of the Criminology Research Centre. There is probably no one else in the world who has had access to so many serial killers over such a long time scale. Ultimately, many of the cases he reviews, including all but one in this book, are focused on events in the US where crime rates, and appetite for this type of literature, is the highest.

This book promises "talking with serial killers" and it does, indeed, provide short snippets of Berry-Dee's conversations with many of the death row inhabitants that he has met over the years, however these are very short, in some cases merely a few seconds. The rest of the transcripts of the actual meetings are mimicked by narrator Colin Mace who does a reasonable job of voicing the various accents, both male and female but this stops well short of playing back the whole of the interviews. Perhaps Berry-Dee is saving these for another day.

5 people found this helpful

Ok if you can’t choose anything else

This book was ok, but the narrators imitation accent of the Americans is awful everyone sounded like he was trying to be forest gump and downright offensive when he imitates the Asian individuals interviewed, it hasn’t aged well and maybe needs re reading

2 people found this helpful

wow, immersive reading

i felt like i was there with christopher when je is talking to some of these people
i learnt alot about how life and adverse childhood experiences mould us in to the adukt we become, ready for the next instalment

1 person found this helpful

Did not like

Not enough speech from criminals themselves and way too many details on sexual crimes.

1 person found this helpful

Riveting read.

Seems an odd thing to listen to but, as a retired Police Officer it has a particular interest for me and whilst mainly US related I enjoyed every one. The Author has written others just as interesting so I had to listen to this.

1 person found this helpful

Good book

Loved listening to the book as i have done with a few other of Chris Dee books.
Shame there was a story from one of the other books in there though.