Arcturus 100 Most Infamous Criminals Murder, mayhem and madness.

by Jo Durden-Smith

An indispensable introduction to the darker side of life, revealing the often strange and grisly stories behind the world's most infamous murderers, swindlers and crooks.

100 Most Infamous Criminals is an astounding compendium of crimes and their perpetrators. Here you will find the stories of some of history's most notorious criminals, the lives they led, the crimes they committed and the destruction and sorrow they left in their wake. This collection includes such notorious villains

Jack the Ripper, the man who terrorized Victorian London.
Charles Manson, the infamous 60s cult leader.
Ted Bundy, the serial killer beloved by his neighbors.
Al Capone, the king of gangsters.
Harold Shipman, Britain's angel of death.

ABOUT THE The True Criminals series provides gripping exposés on some of the most twisted criminals the world has ever seen. Augmented by chilling photographs, this series provides snapshots into the minds of these villains and their deadly acts.

Genres: True Crime, History, Nonfiction

208 pages, Paperback

Published July 1, 2024

About the author

Jo Durden Smith was a British author and a documentary film maker.
He was educated at Haileybury and Merton College, Oxford. He worked for World in Action, Granada TV's documentary team, where his rock films were made.
Subsequently he lived in New York, and then Moscow. He was a columnist for The Moscow Times, to 1997.

Reviews

[Erin · Rating 2 out of 5]

For the reader expecting that this "book details each terrible crime", you will be disappointed. This is a very shallow introduction covering 100 criminals in only 200 pages. Grammatical errors throughout make it hard to read, and dusting over the crimes and background leaves you with only a small fragment of each story. There are no listed sources, references, no bibliography. Isn't this a requirement of non-fiction books which extract information from other sources?
Being located in Australia, it was surprising that two of the countries most heinous crimes were excluded, Ivan Milat (serial back-pack killer), and Martin Bryant (resulted in the change in gun laws in Australia), more brutal & infamous than some included in this book. Very shallow, very disappointing.

[anika · Rating 4 out of 5]

as much as i love the detail in this book, i have noticed that the female author tends to take sympathy towards the female criminals mentioned. in many cases, a female criminal will be described as having a rough background that justifies her crimes whereas a male will only ever be described as a monster whose past does not justify his actions. this subtle aspect made this book a little less enjoyable

[Mary Smith (Boal) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. If you are a true crime fan, you'll like this. It talks briefly about 100 of the world's criminals. The book is separated into 4 parts: The World, The United States, The United Kingdom, and Australia.

The only thing I didn't care for were the grammatical errors. The author is from London and the book was created in London, so some of the "errors" I saw could just be that I'm from the United States and don't talk the same way.

[Cheryl Prince · Rating 3 out of 5]

As much as some of the information here was quite interesting, I found the writing very jarring. The constant use of starting a sentence with "For" really irritated me towards the end. It was an unnecessary use and could have easily been removed without losing any meaning.

[Rachael Fair · Rating 5 out of 5]

very good

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is readable but I think the title is misleading because most of the cases in this book they've already made movies or documentaries about them that I saw before I bought this book.

[Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good short recap of the 100 most infamous criminals but lacks in depth details