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The Gates of Janus: Serial Killing and its Analysis by the Moors Murderer Ian Brady
Ian Brady and Myra Hindley's spree of torture, sexual abuse, and murder of children in the 1960s was one of the most appalling series of crimes ever committed in England, and remains almost daily fixated upon by the tabloid press. In The Gates of Janus, Ian Brady himself allows us a glimpse into the mind of a murderer as he analyzes a dozen other serial crimes and killers.
Criminal profiling by a criminal was not invented by the dramatists of Dexter.
Novelist and true-crime writer Colin Wilson, author of the famous and influential book The Outsider, remarks in his introduction to Brady's book that one must first explore the depraved reaches of human consciousness to truly understand human character.
When first released in 2001, The Gates of Janus sparked controversy attended by a huge media splash. The new edition, the first in paperback, provides the reader with a decade and a half of updates, including Brady's letters to the publisher, both providing information regarding his own demented history along with demands that Feral House remove its unflattering afterword written by author Peter Sotos.
322 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 10, 2001
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June 16, 2019
"The Gates of Janus" was written by England's notorious serial child killer Ian Brady, the male half of the "The Moors Murderers" duo. The book consists of two parts, whereby the first half is a somewhat rambling exposition of Brady's nihilistic philosophy consisting of moral relativism and Marquis de Sade. This is the more perturbing aspect of the book since it is literally like plumbing the sewers of his sociopathic mind. His prose is spattered throughout with evidence of visions of grandeur. Brady views himself almost as a criminal mastermind and omits to mention exactly what he is instead: a weak little man who preyed upon the smallest and most defenseless.
He attempts to present society as a mass of hypocrites who would have behaved just as he had if they only had the courage and he essentially argues that serial killers (and criminals in general) are really courageous and heroic individuals who with their own individual set of ethical standards, choose to defy collective morality.
The other half of the book consists of a number of chapters where Brady attempts to psychologically profile a handful of infamous serial killers such as John Wayne Gacy and Ted Bundy, but although I found his insight interesting, essentially adds nothing to anything I've read before on them. Initially it sounds like a good idea to apply a intelligent serial killer's insight to the acts of other serial killers in the belief that someone who committed similar acts might be able to shed some new light on it, but in this regard the experiment ultimately fails, especially in regard to Brady's attempt at psychological profiling. For instance, he argues that The Green River Killer (eventually found to be Gary Ridgway) is obviously shown through examination of his methodology of murder and disposal of the bodies to be someone of very high intelligence, but when The Green River Killer was finally arrested he was a man of low intelligence (I.Q 82). Brady is also a sloppy and lazy researcher as well, for instance, his narrative of Carl Panzram contradicts in numerous places that which is found in Panzram's Journal of Murder by Thomas E Gaddis, a book that Brady must have used for his source material. Not to mention Brady also makes the exaggerated claims that the sort of barbaric treatment Panzram suffered at the hands of prison authorities are still practiced in prison today, an admission made even more absurd by the fact that Brady's experience of prison is pure luxury compared to a prison like Dannemora or Leavenworth in the time period in which Panzram served his time there, with Brady even allowed at one point a computer in his cell. Also, his almost dismissive chapter on Henry Lee Lucas claims that Lucas was severely abused by his father and argues that the reason why Lucas had a murderous resentment toward his mother was because she betrayed him by allowing the abuse to happen. This is a blatant disregard of the actual facts. In all other accounts of Lucas' life I've read, his father was a legless alcoholic who was abused by his domineering wife who also unleashed her wrath on her sons. From Wikipedia:"His father, Anderson Lucas, was an alcoholic and former railroad employee who had lost his legs after being hit by a freight train. He would usually come home inebriated, and would suffer from Viola's wrath as often as his sons.
Lucas claimed that he and his brother were regularly beaten by Viola, often for no reason. He once spent three days in a coma after his mother struck him with a wooden plank, and on many occasions he was forced by his mother to watch her having sex with men. Lucas also claimed that his mother would often dress him in girls' clothing. His sister Almeda Lucas supports his story, and she claims that she once had two pictures of Henry as a toddler dressed in girls' clothing. Lucas described an incident when he was given a mule as a gift by his uncle, only to see his mother shoot and kill it. Lucas also claimed that, at the age of eight, he was given a teddy bear by one of his teachers, and was then beaten by his mother for accepting charity.
When Lucas was 10, his brother accidentally stabbed him in the left eye while they were fighting. His mother ignored the injury for four days, and subsequently the eye grew infected and had to be replaced by a glass eye."
Ultimately, The Gates of Janus is worth reading if only for the chance to see what it is like to view the world through a psychopathic killer's eyes, complete with obligatory self pity, hypocrisy, contempt for human life, and grandiose dreams.
He attempts to present society as a mass of hypocrites who would have behaved just as he had if they only had the courage and he essentially argues that serial killers (and criminals in general) are really courageous and heroic individuals who with their own individual set of ethical standards, choose to defy collective morality.
The other half of the book consists of a number of chapters where Brady attempts to psychologically profile a handful of infamous serial killers such as John Wayne Gacy and Ted Bundy, but although I found his insight interesting, essentially adds nothing to anything I've read before on them. Initially it sounds like a good idea to apply a intelligent serial killer's insight to the acts of other serial killers in the belief that someone who committed similar acts might be able to shed some new light on it, but in this regard the experiment ultimately fails, especially in regard to Brady's attempt at psychological profiling. For instance, he argues that The Green River Killer (eventually found to be Gary Ridgway) is obviously shown through examination of his methodology of murder and disposal of the bodies to be someone of very high intelligence, but when The Green River Killer was finally arrested he was a man of low intelligence (I.Q 82). Brady is also a sloppy and lazy researcher as well, for instance, his narrative of Carl Panzram contradicts in numerous places that which is found in Panzram's Journal of Murder by Thomas E Gaddis, a book that Brady must have used for his source material. Not to mention Brady also makes the exaggerated claims that the sort of barbaric treatment Panzram suffered at the hands of prison authorities are still practiced in prison today, an admission made even more absurd by the fact that Brady's experience of prison is pure luxury compared to a prison like Dannemora or Leavenworth in the time period in which Panzram served his time there, with Brady even allowed at one point a computer in his cell. Also, his almost dismissive chapter on Henry Lee Lucas claims that Lucas was severely abused by his father and argues that the reason why Lucas had a murderous resentment toward his mother was because she betrayed him by allowing the abuse to happen. This is a blatant disregard of the actual facts. In all other accounts of Lucas' life I've read, his father was a legless alcoholic who was abused by his domineering wife who also unleashed her wrath on her sons. From Wikipedia:"His father, Anderson Lucas, was an alcoholic and former railroad employee who had lost his legs after being hit by a freight train. He would usually come home inebriated, and would suffer from Viola's wrath as often as his sons.
Lucas claimed that he and his brother were regularly beaten by Viola, often for no reason. He once spent three days in a coma after his mother struck him with a wooden plank, and on many occasions he was forced by his mother to watch her having sex with men. Lucas also claimed that his mother would often dress him in girls' clothing. His sister Almeda Lucas supports his story, and she claims that she once had two pictures of Henry as a toddler dressed in girls' clothing. Lucas described an incident when he was given a mule as a gift by his uncle, only to see his mother shoot and kill it. Lucas also claimed that, at the age of eight, he was given a teddy bear by one of his teachers, and was then beaten by his mother for accepting charity.
When Lucas was 10, his brother accidentally stabbed him in the left eye while they were fighting. His mother ignored the injury for four days, and subsequently the eye grew infected and had to be replaced by a glass eye."
Ultimately, The Gates of Janus is worth reading if only for the chance to see what it is like to view the world through a psychopathic killer's eyes, complete with obligatory self pity, hypocrisy, contempt for human life, and grandiose dreams.
March 1, 2017
I'm giving this book five stars as a primary source. Because whatever you think about Brady and Brady's motives in writing the book, and how much of what he says is lies, Brady is giving the reader a Boschian picture of the inside of a serial killer's head. He tells you openly that serial killers lie. He talks about why they lie, and so when you catch Brady lying, you know what's going on.
It's a strange experience, full of cognitive dissonance. Brady is clearly very intelligent (clearly, like several of the other serial killers he discusses, just not quite as intelligent as he thinks he is), very rational. He's an excellent writer. He lays out the information he has about his subjects crisply, concisely, and with an eye for tiny but vital details.
And he's a psychopath.
(He differentiates clearly between psychopaths and psychotics and then tells you that he was diagnosed psychotic. But he's given you the information you need to see, while he may have what he calls secondary affective symptoms of psychosis, he's a psychopath.)
If this were not a primary source, I would give it three or four stars, because Brady spends way too much time discoursing on his theory of "moral relativism," a truckload of Nietzschean bullshit that follows naturally from the inherent built-in belief of the psychopath that whatever he wants to do is right. (Brady can recognize, and even cogently analyze, the fallacy in others, but he can't see it in himself.) It's both infuriating and boring--and intensely valuable if you genuinely want to understand how psychopaths think. The contempt for everyone around him (especially police and prison officials), the contempt for his audience that oozes out of everything he says (it clearly never occurs to him that the person reading this book might actually be as intelligent and "self-aware" as he is--"self-aware" is in quotes because Brady's self-awareness is a remarkably close mirror of the "self-awareness" of his fellow psychopaths, Eric Harris and Ted Bundy), the absolute certainty that he shouldn't have to obey the laws, which he bolsters with a great deal of nonsense about the corruption of society--not that his critique is wrong, power does corrupt and the people who gain power are very likely to be just as psychopathic as Brady and his criminal brethren (*cough*topical relevance*cough*), but he takes from that it's therefore morally better to be a criminal, which is what he means by "moral relativism." This is a psychopath who has had a lot of time to think about his belief system, to elaborate and defend it, and I'm sure that what he wanted most from writing this book was a captive audience for his Hitlerian rant. Boring and infuriating, but at the same time you can see the way that his thinking always makes that same twist back into the center of the maze rather than finding its way out. Extremely intelligent, perfectly rational (he's a psychopath, not a psychotic), and absolutely condemned, like the Minotaur, to live in the labyrinth he's built for himself.
(I find it hilarious that in his afterword to the second edition, Colin Wilson is shocked to discover that he's been corresponding for ten years with a psychopath: "I knew that Brady was a sex killer, and that his chosen victims were children. What I failed to grasp is that this involved an incredibly high degree of self-centeredness" (316). Colin Wilson's pontificating (particularly about serial killers as "dominant males") annoys me profoundly, so I admit to a certain degree of schadenfreude in watching him falling face-first into the trap that he himself built. What Wilson describes of his correspondence with Brady reminds me very strongly of Ted Bundy's correspondence with Ann Rule. Brady and Bundy maintain the same supercilious patronizing attitude until something trips one of their triggers, and then they go off in prima donna hissy fits. Intelligent psychopaths conforming to the pattern that's worn into their mental circuits. You knew it was a snake, Mr. Wilson. Why are you surprised that it bit you?)
Brady discusses Henry Lee Lucas (with utter contempt for both Lucas, whom he considers a miserable excuse for a serial killer and for all the law enforcement officers who bought the line of goods Lucas was selling); John Wayne Gacy; Graham Young; Dean Corll; Peter Sutcliffe; Richard Ramirez; the Cleveland Torso Murderer (whom Brady knows as "the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run," which is a much better name); Ted Bundy; the Green River Killer; Carl Panzram; and Angelo Buono and Kenneth Bianchi. He is an excellent analyst, as long as you remember to compensate for the psychopathic lens, and as I said above, an excellent writer, and most of those chapters are well worth reading on their own merits. (Brady admires Panzram too much, and that chapter is mostly adulation.) As Robert Keppel learned with Ted Bundy (see The Riverman: Ted Bundy and I Hunt for the Green River Killer), you have to watch for where Brady, in talking about other serial killers, is actually talking about himself. Both Bundy and Brady are trying to explain how hard it is for serial killers to talk about their crimes, both because of shame (Guilt? No. Shame? Yes.) and because of what Brady calls the hidden agenda, the true reason for the murders, the den at the center of the labyrinth where the Minotaur lives. Brady says that serial killers will do anything to protect this last hidden mystery, and you have to remember that he always includes himself in that.
I find it really interesting that both Brady and Bundy seemed unable to conceptualize of a serial killer like Gary Ridgway. Brady argues for two killers using the Green River site, but he's arguing from his recognition of the killings as a psychopath's crimes, and he, like Bundy, can't not put himself in that equation. He can't imagine a psychopath as stunningly banal as Gary Ridgway, someone who was perfectly happy being mediocre in every way except this one thing. It's another place where the value of this book as a primary source shines through.
In his afterword, which I recommend skipping entirely, Peter Sotos makes much of his loathing for Brady, citing specifically Brady's refusal to reveal the location of Keith Bennett's body. Leaving aside the fact that Brady may genuinely be unable to find the grave, this is something that he shares with Bundy and Ridgway, the idea that the body, hidden, is the significator of that hidden mystery at the center of the serial killer's dark and fundamentally empty life, that thing that he will die rather than articulate. No connection to the victim as a living human being (Rule comments on that as a commonality between Bundy and Ridgway, that they both attached far more strongly to inanimate objects than to people), but the corpse and the corpse's hiding place are awash in meaning and power. It's not necessarily cruelty that keeps Brady silent (although cruelty is certainly, to him, a beneficial side effect); it's that last shred of the mystery, that last thing that he knows and no one else in the world does.
It's a strange experience, full of cognitive dissonance. Brady is clearly very intelligent (clearly, like several of the other serial killers he discusses, just not quite as intelligent as he thinks he is), very rational. He's an excellent writer. He lays out the information he has about his subjects crisply, concisely, and with an eye for tiny but vital details.
And he's a psychopath.
(He differentiates clearly between psychopaths and psychotics and then tells you that he was diagnosed psychotic. But he's given you the information you need to see, while he may have what he calls secondary affective symptoms of psychosis, he's a psychopath.)
If this were not a primary source, I would give it three or four stars, because Brady spends way too much time discoursing on his theory of "moral relativism," a truckload of Nietzschean bullshit that follows naturally from the inherent built-in belief of the psychopath that whatever he wants to do is right. (Brady can recognize, and even cogently analyze, the fallacy in others, but he can't see it in himself.) It's both infuriating and boring--and intensely valuable if you genuinely want to understand how psychopaths think. The contempt for everyone around him (especially police and prison officials), the contempt for his audience that oozes out of everything he says (it clearly never occurs to him that the person reading this book might actually be as intelligent and "self-aware" as he is--"self-aware" is in quotes because Brady's self-awareness is a remarkably close mirror of the "self-awareness" of his fellow psychopaths, Eric Harris and Ted Bundy), the absolute certainty that he shouldn't have to obey the laws, which he bolsters with a great deal of nonsense about the corruption of society--not that his critique is wrong, power does corrupt and the people who gain power are very likely to be just as psychopathic as Brady and his criminal brethren (*cough*topical relevance*cough*), but he takes from that it's therefore morally better to be a criminal, which is what he means by "moral relativism." This is a psychopath who has had a lot of time to think about his belief system, to elaborate and defend it, and I'm sure that what he wanted most from writing this book was a captive audience for his Hitlerian rant. Boring and infuriating, but at the same time you can see the way that his thinking always makes that same twist back into the center of the maze rather than finding its way out. Extremely intelligent, perfectly rational (he's a psychopath, not a psychotic), and absolutely condemned, like the Minotaur, to live in the labyrinth he's built for himself.
(I find it hilarious that in his afterword to the second edition, Colin Wilson is shocked to discover that he's been corresponding for ten years with a psychopath: "I knew that Brady was a sex killer, and that his chosen victims were children. What I failed to grasp is that this involved an incredibly high degree of self-centeredness" (316). Colin Wilson's pontificating (particularly about serial killers as "dominant males") annoys me profoundly, so I admit to a certain degree of schadenfreude in watching him falling face-first into the trap that he himself built. What Wilson describes of his correspondence with Brady reminds me very strongly of Ted Bundy's correspondence with Ann Rule. Brady and Bundy maintain the same supercilious patronizing attitude until something trips one of their triggers, and then they go off in prima donna hissy fits. Intelligent psychopaths conforming to the pattern that's worn into their mental circuits. You knew it was a snake, Mr. Wilson. Why are you surprised that it bit you?)
Brady discusses Henry Lee Lucas (with utter contempt for both Lucas, whom he considers a miserable excuse for a serial killer and for all the law enforcement officers who bought the line of goods Lucas was selling); John Wayne Gacy; Graham Young; Dean Corll; Peter Sutcliffe; Richard Ramirez; the Cleveland Torso Murderer (whom Brady knows as "the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run," which is a much better name); Ted Bundy; the Green River Killer; Carl Panzram; and Angelo Buono and Kenneth Bianchi. He is an excellent analyst, as long as you remember to compensate for the psychopathic lens, and as I said above, an excellent writer, and most of those chapters are well worth reading on their own merits. (Brady admires Panzram too much, and that chapter is mostly adulation.) As Robert Keppel learned with Ted Bundy (see The Riverman: Ted Bundy and I Hunt for the Green River Killer), you have to watch for where Brady, in talking about other serial killers, is actually talking about himself. Both Bundy and Brady are trying to explain how hard it is for serial killers to talk about their crimes, both because of shame (Guilt? No. Shame? Yes.) and because of what Brady calls the hidden agenda, the true reason for the murders, the den at the center of the labyrinth where the Minotaur lives. Brady says that serial killers will do anything to protect this last hidden mystery, and you have to remember that he always includes himself in that.
I find it really interesting that both Brady and Bundy seemed unable to conceptualize of a serial killer like Gary Ridgway. Brady argues for two killers using the Green River site, but he's arguing from his recognition of the killings as a psychopath's crimes, and he, like Bundy, can't not put himself in that equation. He can't imagine a psychopath as stunningly banal as Gary Ridgway, someone who was perfectly happy being mediocre in every way except this one thing. It's another place where the value of this book as a primary source shines through.
In his afterword, which I recommend skipping entirely, Peter Sotos makes much of his loathing for Brady, citing specifically Brady's refusal to reveal the location of Keith Bennett's body. Leaving aside the fact that Brady may genuinely be unable to find the grave, this is something that he shares with Bundy and Ridgway, the idea that the body, hidden, is the significator of that hidden mystery at the center of the serial killer's dark and fundamentally empty life, that thing that he will die rather than articulate. No connection to the victim as a living human being (Rule comments on that as a commonality between Bundy and Ridgway, that they both attached far more strongly to inanimate objects than to people), but the corpse and the corpse's hiding place are awash in meaning and power. It's not necessarily cruelty that keeps Brady silent (although cruelty is certainly, to him, a beneficial side effect); it's that last shred of the mystery, that last thing that he knows and no one else in the world does.
July 11, 2018
There are four sections to the book by Ian Brady, who along with Myra Hindley, killed five children : A forward and afterwards by Colin Wilson, a huge screed by Peter Sotos (a 'transgressive' writer) and Ian Brady's a) imitation of Wilson's The Outsider b) his "analysis" of some infamous serial killers.
Wilson was a brilliant autodictact, his first book The Outsider moving Nietzsche's ubermenschen from a vertical superior position to one, 'sideways' to conventional society. In Wilson's world, the Outsider is not necessarily better, but he or she sees the hypocrisy of the conventional world and lives life by his or her own terms. Wilson became, not surprisingly, fascinated with outlaws, although by all accounts, he was a decent man himself. He ends up here a kind of a tourist, seeing Brady and other serial murderers as the ultimate outsider. In a kind of a mea culpa ten years later, he states the blindingly obvious: "Now I look back on our correspondence, I can see precisely where I went wrong. I knew that Brady was a sex killer and that his chosen victims were children. What I failed to grasp is that this involved an incredibly high degree of self-centeredness," a statement stupid enough to tempt one to throw the book across the room.
It is interesting to dovetail Wilson's foreword and afterward with the 1st half of Brady's own writing. Brady is a pompous pseudo-intellectual, well-read and full of quotes, which he implies, support his viewpoint. Which can be summed up in this: the world is corrupt and all people in it are empty souls - just like he. Hypocrites, be they white-collar criminals or soldiers on a battlefield, do far more damage than any serial killer (which he sets up as almost a kind of oppressed minority class - the existentialist heroes who, perceiving the hollowness of all morality and the oppression of the hypocrites, kill as an act of rebellion). (This whole section of the book could be viewed as a kind of 'grooming' of Colin Wilson--it reads like an inept regurgitation of his work. And of course is the added hope that he may seduce others to his perspective). There are passages that are inarguable, in terms of how immoral society can be. And with the frisson of vicarious terror that serial killers bring (in fiction), it can be convincing - it obviously did so for Wilson. But here's the thought experiment. If you are unfortunate to read this book, take some of these passages and substitute diet for war and murder. Gluten allergies, ketogenics, GMO's, sustainable farming, global warming, all the rest. And substitute eating excrement for all his heroic images of the serial killer. Substitute, then the transgression of scat, the ultimate rebellion against the social hypocrisy of how and what we eat, and you will see the utter hollowness of his claim. In short, his claim that he is the ultimate rebel because he kills children to 'strike back against societies evils' make no more sense that eating shit is an act of rebellion against the tyranny of the 'food pyramid' and bad dietitians. Brady is reported to have read Nietzsche, Dostoyevsky, Kierkegaard, and other existentialist writers. Rather than these writers inspiring him to rebellion as he - and at times Wilson - seem to claim, he simply used this as an excuse to rape and murder children. It fed his sense of being special. That's all.
Peter Sotos' is not a tourist like Wilson, he is a voyeur, self-hating and chaotic in his writing - who achieves some moral standing, I suppose in his own eyes, by finding hypocrisy in everything. So, for example, he takes out after the bereaved parents who cannot let go of trying to find the body of their child to give him a 'Christian burial.' A masturbator on a dung heap, Sotos spews contempt on any and all, including himself.
Finally, Brady's "profiling." He read some books on various killers, plagiarizes and paraphrases accounts of their crimes, crows how stupid the police were, cadences long lists of misunderstood psychological terms, and is simply wrong in several cases. In every case, though, his murderer is an existential hero. The 'Night Stalker' is "a Shakespeare of serial killers," for example. Brady writes to a fantasized audience whom he imagines hang on his every word, as if giving a lecture to the FBI VICAP program on 'how profiling is really done.' It is patronizing, surpassingly self-important and lacks any originality.
Is there anything of value in this book? It is for those who do not grasp what the mind of a psychopath really is like: boring, and clueless to how humans with a conscience or sense of morality and sympathy for others might think. In sum, sexual sadistic killers are so inadequate that they need something helpless to exert power and lust upon--all too often, an unconscious or dead body.
His perspective is this: "All matters turn not on reality but on perception of reality. A virtue or an evil is only as significant as one believes it to be." All those words he intones. Contrast it to this, just one phrase from the transcript of the tape Brady and Hindley made as they murdered Lesley Ann Downey, aged ten: "Don't undress me, will you?" Does one need any more to understand a man and woman who refused this plea?
People have asserted that it is important NOT to execute such killers because we could "learn from them," and may be be able to head off such crimes in the future. But anything they say is simply justification for their desire to torture, rape and murder. Why? Because it delights them. Or satisfies rage or lust. If this book teaches anything, it is that they have nothing to teach--they are empty vicious narcissists, all variants on a theme.
Wilson was a brilliant autodictact, his first book The Outsider moving Nietzsche's ubermenschen from a vertical superior position to one, 'sideways' to conventional society. In Wilson's world, the Outsider is not necessarily better, but he or she sees the hypocrisy of the conventional world and lives life by his or her own terms. Wilson became, not surprisingly, fascinated with outlaws, although by all accounts, he was a decent man himself. He ends up here a kind of a tourist, seeing Brady and other serial murderers as the ultimate outsider. In a kind of a mea culpa ten years later, he states the blindingly obvious: "Now I look back on our correspondence, I can see precisely where I went wrong. I knew that Brady was a sex killer and that his chosen victims were children. What I failed to grasp is that this involved an incredibly high degree of self-centeredness," a statement stupid enough to tempt one to throw the book across the room.
It is interesting to dovetail Wilson's foreword and afterward with the 1st half of Brady's own writing. Brady is a pompous pseudo-intellectual, well-read and full of quotes, which he implies, support his viewpoint. Which can be summed up in this: the world is corrupt and all people in it are empty souls - just like he. Hypocrites, be they white-collar criminals or soldiers on a battlefield, do far more damage than any serial killer (which he sets up as almost a kind of oppressed minority class - the existentialist heroes who, perceiving the hollowness of all morality and the oppression of the hypocrites, kill as an act of rebellion). (This whole section of the book could be viewed as a kind of 'grooming' of Colin Wilson--it reads like an inept regurgitation of his work. And of course is the added hope that he may seduce others to his perspective). There are passages that are inarguable, in terms of how immoral society can be. And with the frisson of vicarious terror that serial killers bring (in fiction), it can be convincing - it obviously did so for Wilson. But here's the thought experiment. If you are unfortunate to read this book, take some of these passages and substitute diet for war and murder. Gluten allergies, ketogenics, GMO's, sustainable farming, global warming, all the rest. And substitute eating excrement for all his heroic images of the serial killer. Substitute, then the transgression of scat, the ultimate rebellion against the social hypocrisy of how and what we eat, and you will see the utter hollowness of his claim. In short, his claim that he is the ultimate rebel because he kills children to 'strike back against societies evils' make no more sense that eating shit is an act of rebellion against the tyranny of the 'food pyramid' and bad dietitians. Brady is reported to have read Nietzsche, Dostoyevsky, Kierkegaard, and other existentialist writers. Rather than these writers inspiring him to rebellion as he - and at times Wilson - seem to claim, he simply used this as an excuse to rape and murder children. It fed his sense of being special. That's all.
Peter Sotos' is not a tourist like Wilson, he is a voyeur, self-hating and chaotic in his writing - who achieves some moral standing, I suppose in his own eyes, by finding hypocrisy in everything. So, for example, he takes out after the bereaved parents who cannot let go of trying to find the body of their child to give him a 'Christian burial.' A masturbator on a dung heap, Sotos spews contempt on any and all, including himself.
Finally, Brady's "profiling." He read some books on various killers, plagiarizes and paraphrases accounts of their crimes, crows how stupid the police were, cadences long lists of misunderstood psychological terms, and is simply wrong in several cases. In every case, though, his murderer is an existential hero. The 'Night Stalker' is "a Shakespeare of serial killers," for example. Brady writes to a fantasized audience whom he imagines hang on his every word, as if giving a lecture to the FBI VICAP program on 'how profiling is really done.' It is patronizing, surpassingly self-important and lacks any originality.
Is there anything of value in this book? It is for those who do not grasp what the mind of a psychopath really is like: boring, and clueless to how humans with a conscience or sense of morality and sympathy for others might think. In sum, sexual sadistic killers are so inadequate that they need something helpless to exert power and lust upon--all too often, an unconscious or dead body.
His perspective is this: "All matters turn not on reality but on perception of reality. A virtue or an evil is only as significant as one believes it to be." All those words he intones. Contrast it to this, just one phrase from the transcript of the tape Brady and Hindley made as they murdered Lesley Ann Downey, aged ten: "Don't undress me, will you?" Does one need any more to understand a man and woman who refused this plea?
People have asserted that it is important NOT to execute such killers because we could "learn from them," and may be be able to head off such crimes in the future. But anything they say is simply justification for their desire to torture, rape and murder. Why? Because it delights them. Or satisfies rage or lust. If this book teaches anything, it is that they have nothing to teach--they are empty vicious narcissists, all variants on a theme.
October 20, 2020
Other Goodreads commenters have called Ian Brady and his fellow psychopaths empty bores. But if they're empty, why do they thrill at the idea of murder? And if they're boring, whence our fascination with them?
'The Gates of Janus' can't be so blithely dismissed. Its existence is too serious for that. For this is the most cogent defense of nihilism and murder since the screeds of the Marquis de Sade.
Imagine that some impressionable young man presents you the arguments in this book. What would you say to him? Would you call him a pervert? A mental case? A weak loser who just needs to get laid? None of these insults satisfies, and their shallowness, cruelty, pretension, and lack of reason confirms Brady's nihilism about mankind. Where's the value?
Ian Brady embodies the nihilism that Nietzsche warned about, and if you don't know how to answer him, you don't have a remedy for the darkness that gnaws at the heart of the world. Murder, war, suicide, addiction, neglect, indifference, poverty, abuse. Why is a society of people who hate serial killers so profoundly violent and corrupt? Because what reaches its perfection in people like Ian Brady lives in normal people too.
Evil societies are the aggregate of private evil, and they will never be transformed until we can read books like this without hand waving them away as the rot of the obviously perverted. Nihilism is false, evil is real, and books like this are a challenge that demand an answer.
'The Gates of Janus' can't be so blithely dismissed. Its existence is too serious for that. For this is the most cogent defense of nihilism and murder since the screeds of the Marquis de Sade.
Imagine that some impressionable young man presents you the arguments in this book. What would you say to him? Would you call him a pervert? A mental case? A weak loser who just needs to get laid? None of these insults satisfies, and their shallowness, cruelty, pretension, and lack of reason confirms Brady's nihilism about mankind. Where's the value?
Ian Brady embodies the nihilism that Nietzsche warned about, and if you don't know how to answer him, you don't have a remedy for the darkness that gnaws at the heart of the world. Murder, war, suicide, addiction, neglect, indifference, poverty, abuse. Why is a society of people who hate serial killers so profoundly violent and corrupt? Because what reaches its perfection in people like Ian Brady lives in normal people too.
Evil societies are the aggregate of private evil, and they will never be transformed until we can read books like this without hand waving them away as the rot of the obviously perverted. Nihilism is false, evil is real, and books like this are a challenge that demand an answer.
January 31, 2010
Easily the most insightful/intelligent book that I have ever read related to true crime/serial killers. The author of the book is Ian Brady, the Moor killer (with his sidekick girlfriend), a killer of young children and teenagers. In the book, Brady does not shy away about his thoughts on killers ranging from Panzram to the Boston Strangler(s). Brady also talks about the ignorance and idiocy of those that deem themselves "experts" on the criminal mind. In "The Gates of Janus," makes it fairly clear he has had a lot of time to think over the psyche of himself and other killers. I don't think I have ever read a book that was so good at creeping me out and at the same time, so well written.
Highly recommended!
Highly recommended!
July 17, 2008
A book concerning the anaylsis of serial killing by a serial killer. Pretty entertaining and informational, but Ian Brady is a self-aggrandized douche bag. Could you expect anything less?
March 29, 2020
A book about serial killers by a serial killer sounds intriguing, but what can you hope to find here? Something that will help catch them? Possibly prevent them? Ian Brady doesn't have any extraordinary insight for you. Nothing new; nothing helpful unless you want to delve into the thoughts of a narcissist psychopath. Filled with inaccuracies, Brady's analysis of varies serial killers tells more about himself than his subjects.
He waffles on about 'moral relativity', which is only brought up by those who want to commit atrocities and think they're smart enough to confuse people. In order for a society to function and thrive, there has to be core principles and values that everyone agrees upon or else all chaos ensues. Morality serves a purpose for society, and has some stable principles throughout different cultures. It's pretty clear raping and murdering children to get off is wrong. Brady's claim he doesn't see it as such falls flat when we understand his crimes were intended to violate morals in the most abominable way possible, thus unintentionally acknowledging he knew his actions were wrong.
Blaming society and politicians and war, Brady attempts and fails to portray serial killers as mistreated antiheroes fighting the establishment... I guess by raping and murdering? Not sure how that works, and I doubt Ian Brady did either.
He waffles on about 'moral relativity', which is only brought up by those who want to commit atrocities and think they're smart enough to confuse people. In order for a society to function and thrive, there has to be core principles and values that everyone agrees upon or else all chaos ensues. Morality serves a purpose for society, and has some stable principles throughout different cultures. It's pretty clear raping and murdering children to get off is wrong. Brady's claim he doesn't see it as such falls flat when we understand his crimes were intended to violate morals in the most abominable way possible, thus unintentionally acknowledging he knew his actions were wrong.
Blaming society and politicians and war, Brady attempts and fails to portray serial killers as mistreated antiheroes fighting the establishment... I guess by raping and murdering? Not sure how that works, and I doubt Ian Brady did either.
January 26, 2010
If this book was a person and approached me outside the grocery store, I'd quickly cross the street. This is a book to annoy people who try to find worth in true redemption. You can read more of my review at: http://ireadoddbooks.com/?p=94
December 17, 2015
Excellent book on the subject of SERIAL KILLERS. I have never read a book such detailed and in depth on the subject, and I have read my fair share on serial killers, making my local librarians wonder about me.
March 12, 2011
For me this is two books in one, the first half deals with Brady's views on society and the general psychology of your average serial killer (if there is such a thing as an average serial killer) and the second half delves into individual cases, both solved and unsolved, dissecting the whys and wherefores of each killer.
The first half is overloaded with Brady's paranoia and attacks on society as hypocritical and corrupt as the people it punishes and on the general public as being the dull herded animals that believe everything that the authorities tells them. While Brady does have some interesting points to make they get lost in the miasma of his delusions and need to use as much jargon as possible, which is a shame given that his views do raise many questions that each of us should at least consider if nothing else. Brady also dives into psychology and psychiatry in this section and how these areas of study have developed into the tools used by detectives and how the terms banded around in film, television and books actually relate to reality. Here Brady has made very good use of the prison library and the spare time he has had since his imprisonment decades ago. Although this again does become lost amongst Brady's accusations against authority and society as a whole, it does give good insight and clarity into the mind sets of the killers discussed in the next section of the book.
This second section deals with the case histories of eleven serial killers, hand picked by Brady for discussion, including John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, Peter Sutcliffe and Richard Ramirez. Each of these studies focus on the killer with the victims taking more of a background role, which does make a refreshing change, as Brady focuses on the motivation behind the killer's actions in all respects of their crimes not just on the gore and horror of the killings themselves. For each Brady provides interesting and sometimes quite original opinions and views on why certain actions, methods etc were used from the view of someone who thinks the same, which (let's face it) cannot be replicated by detectives, psychiatrists, media etc no matter how hard they try. Interestingly you can sense that some of the insights Brady gives are from more than intelligient thought and hint at personal experience with some of the aspects of the crimes dealt with, making one think that even though Brady doesn't discuss his own crimes directly, he is indirectly through those of others.
No matter what you think of Brady as an individual, he is an articulate and intelligent writer, and although at times you may just want to fling the book across the room in disgust, one has to admit that he makes many a good point and gives incredible insight into the society, authority, the individual killers dealt with and himself, as a man and a criminal.
The first half is overloaded with Brady's paranoia and attacks on society as hypocritical and corrupt as the people it punishes and on the general public as being the dull herded animals that believe everything that the authorities tells them. While Brady does have some interesting points to make they get lost in the miasma of his delusions and need to use as much jargon as possible, which is a shame given that his views do raise many questions that each of us should at least consider if nothing else. Brady also dives into psychology and psychiatry in this section and how these areas of study have developed into the tools used by detectives and how the terms banded around in film, television and books actually relate to reality. Here Brady has made very good use of the prison library and the spare time he has had since his imprisonment decades ago. Although this again does become lost amongst Brady's accusations against authority and society as a whole, it does give good insight and clarity into the mind sets of the killers discussed in the next section of the book.
This second section deals with the case histories of eleven serial killers, hand picked by Brady for discussion, including John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, Peter Sutcliffe and Richard Ramirez. Each of these studies focus on the killer with the victims taking more of a background role, which does make a refreshing change, as Brady focuses on the motivation behind the killer's actions in all respects of their crimes not just on the gore and horror of the killings themselves. For each Brady provides interesting and sometimes quite original opinions and views on why certain actions, methods etc were used from the view of someone who thinks the same, which (let's face it) cannot be replicated by detectives, psychiatrists, media etc no matter how hard they try. Interestingly you can sense that some of the insights Brady gives are from more than intelligient thought and hint at personal experience with some of the aspects of the crimes dealt with, making one think that even though Brady doesn't discuss his own crimes directly, he is indirectly through those of others.
No matter what you think of Brady as an individual, he is an articulate and intelligent writer, and although at times you may just want to fling the book across the room in disgust, one has to admit that he makes many a good point and gives incredible insight into the society, authority, the individual killers dealt with and himself, as a man and a criminal.
April 3, 2011
While I know my appreciation for this book is not something the average person would understand, I found this amazingly insightful. Regardless of how you feel about Brady, or the idea of serial killers in general, there is no doubt this work exposes some dark thoughts and ideas that while we might like to pretend don't exist, are worth pondering. I've always believed that anyone is capable of anything given the right circumstances, and this book raises the question of how easily the right circumstances can come about.
An extremely insightful view into the human - not just "criminal" - mind.
An extremely insightful view into the human - not just "criminal" - mind.
July 3, 2013
An excellent book with exception of Peter Sotos' bum blast afterword which I very strongly believe was not Ian Brady's choice to be included.. It is the nearest one will get to an auto- biography by Brady. at least while he is still alive. He is extremely intelligent and intellectual as well as honest and informative too. 5 Stars.
August 10, 2019
This book sucked. Hardly any interesting insight into serial killing even though its by a serial killer. Also poor taste? ALSO I read the updated version with an afterword by Peter Sotos which was unreadable. Who the fuck breaks up their sentences with unnecessary periods?? Does he know that makes it hard to follow and doesn't add emphasis like he thinks it does? WHERE IS THE EDITOR?? Hard pass.
December 20, 2008
A crock by a crook. Brady preyed on the weak and is a plagiarist as well as a child-murderer. He does unwittingly reveal a good deal about his psyche but there's no worthwhile insight to be had here.
February 15, 2013
I hate to say it but this is a fascinating read. I very rarely put it down after I'd started. How often do you get to hear the delusional opinions of one of britains most hated psychopaths? A massive insight into the inner workings of a blatantly disturbed soul.
May 14, 2025
One of Our Own is one of the numerous books on the Moors murders. The author used it as a major source. Ian Brady wrote The Gates of Janus while in prison and he was a remarkable writer with deep insights into the human psyche. His atheism and views on morality are best summed up in this excerpt. "Superior human intelligence is no mark of divinity. Empirically, it reveals a superior savagery. No other animal on earth is so inclined to slaughter its own kind in regular global conflicts, apparently subject to the Orwellian expedient that some people are made more in the image of God than others."
Brady points out that serial killers are minor psychopaths when compared with the numbers killed by government leaders such as Nixon and Kissinger when they carpet-bombed Cambodia and denied their war crimes. The blood of millions have been justified by the "greater good. " Another brilliant excerpt, "If I were wont to play Pontius Pilate, and asked you to choose between Richard Nixon and Charles Manson, who best would deserve crucifixion?
After a lengthy introduction which takes up about a quarter of the book, Brady moves on to profile some of his fellow serial killers. Henry Lee Lucas is first. His case was a joke as he convinced lawmen that he had killed more than three hundred people. Looking to clear cases, he was fed information on the murders. In reality, he had killed his mother and his wife.
John Wayne Gacy performed at children's parties as Pogo the Clown and ended up on death row after being convicted of killing thirty three men and boys. Brady believed that Gacy's rage had been fueled by drugs and alcohol.
Graham Young had an early start to his criminal behavior when he was sent to Broadmoor for attempting to poison a few family members. Upon his release, the young man proceeded to kill a few coworkers using thallium. Brady played chess against him and never lost.
Dean Corll was known as the Candyman, as he owned a store and would lure boys with offers of the sweets. His total number of kills was at least twenty-five. Brady surmised that, like most serial killers, Dean's motivation was power and control. He also cites St. Thomas Aquinas belief that the crime committed in thought was as sinful as the act itself. Nietzsche had a similar outlook.
Brady was told by Peter Sutcliffe, ‘The Yorkshire Ripper,’ that while working as a gravedigger at a Catholic cemetery, the voice of God commanded him to kill prostitutes. He later blamed the Devil, passing the buck from one myth to another. Ian has a way with words. Sutcliffe confessed to thirteen murders.
Richard Ramirez(the Night Stalker) had a similar, Nietzsche inspired outlook on the world as Brady. At trial he stated that he was beyond good and evil.
The "Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run" killed vagrants and prostitutes, slicing and dicing them with surgical skill. It was to be Eliot Ness's greatest defeat.
Brady held a fascination with Raskolnikov, the main character in Crime and Punishment, also my favorite novel. The fictional man is compared with the real life killer Ted Bundy. His crime spree is recounted here with another classic line, "Bundy would attain his final incandescence in the electric chair in Starke State Prison, Florida. "
Gary Ridgway plied his trade in Washington State where he offed hookers and then dumped them in the Green River. Once again, a pearl of wisdom from Ian, "The genteel look down their noses at hookers, never seeming to realise it takes a lot of hard courage to be one. " He believed that more than one killer was responsible for the crimes.
Carl Panzram might be the most brutal of all. In an encounter with a prison guard, Carl quipped, ‘The only way to reform people is to kill them.’ After severe rapes and beatings in reform school, the son of German immigrants vowed vengeance on the world. He wrote an autobiography while in prison and was hanged.
Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono finish up the list of serial killers. The cousins raped and strangled ten women and their behavior was parasitic and that if acting alone, Brady believed that neither would have killed.
The vicious killer had a way with words and I was captivated by The Gates of Janus.
Brady points out that serial killers are minor psychopaths when compared with the numbers killed by government leaders such as Nixon and Kissinger when they carpet-bombed Cambodia and denied their war crimes. The blood of millions have been justified by the "greater good. " Another brilliant excerpt, "If I were wont to play Pontius Pilate, and asked you to choose between Richard Nixon and Charles Manson, who best would deserve crucifixion?
After a lengthy introduction which takes up about a quarter of the book, Brady moves on to profile some of his fellow serial killers. Henry Lee Lucas is first. His case was a joke as he convinced lawmen that he had killed more than three hundred people. Looking to clear cases, he was fed information on the murders. In reality, he had killed his mother and his wife.
John Wayne Gacy performed at children's parties as Pogo the Clown and ended up on death row after being convicted of killing thirty three men and boys. Brady believed that Gacy's rage had been fueled by drugs and alcohol.
Graham Young had an early start to his criminal behavior when he was sent to Broadmoor for attempting to poison a few family members. Upon his release, the young man proceeded to kill a few coworkers using thallium. Brady played chess against him and never lost.
Dean Corll was known as the Candyman, as he owned a store and would lure boys with offers of the sweets. His total number of kills was at least twenty-five. Brady surmised that, like most serial killers, Dean's motivation was power and control. He also cites St. Thomas Aquinas belief that the crime committed in thought was as sinful as the act itself. Nietzsche had a similar outlook.
Brady was told by Peter Sutcliffe, ‘The Yorkshire Ripper,’ that while working as a gravedigger at a Catholic cemetery, the voice of God commanded him to kill prostitutes. He later blamed the Devil, passing the buck from one myth to another. Ian has a way with words. Sutcliffe confessed to thirteen murders.
Richard Ramirez(the Night Stalker) had a similar, Nietzsche inspired outlook on the world as Brady. At trial he stated that he was beyond good and evil.
The "Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run" killed vagrants and prostitutes, slicing and dicing them with surgical skill. It was to be Eliot Ness's greatest defeat.
Brady held a fascination with Raskolnikov, the main character in Crime and Punishment, also my favorite novel. The fictional man is compared with the real life killer Ted Bundy. His crime spree is recounted here with another classic line, "Bundy would attain his final incandescence in the electric chair in Starke State Prison, Florida. "
Gary Ridgway plied his trade in Washington State where he offed hookers and then dumped them in the Green River. Once again, a pearl of wisdom from Ian, "The genteel look down their noses at hookers, never seeming to realise it takes a lot of hard courage to be one. " He believed that more than one killer was responsible for the crimes.
Carl Panzram might be the most brutal of all. In an encounter with a prison guard, Carl quipped, ‘The only way to reform people is to kill them.’ After severe rapes and beatings in reform school, the son of German immigrants vowed vengeance on the world. He wrote an autobiography while in prison and was hanged.
Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono finish up the list of serial killers. The cousins raped and strangled ten women and their behavior was parasitic and that if acting alone, Brady believed that neither would have killed.
The vicious killer had a way with words and I was captivated by The Gates of Janus.
January 18, 2026
2.5 stars. This book was often convoluted and boring, especially the extended afterword.
January 22, 2008
Ian Brady, The Gates of Janus (Feral House, 2001)
Feral House has a history of presenting some of the best nonfiction the planet has to offer, all of it under the table (except Nightmare of Ecstasy, the Edward D. Wood Jr. bio Tim Burton used as the basis for his film Ed Wood). This is criminal. Feral House releases nonfiction for people who don't like nonfiction; the autobiography of a person who spent over half his juvenile life in prison, a reprint of a medieval text called Tortures and Torments of the Christian Martyrs, biographies of Anton LaVey, and the two most necessary anthologies of critical writing on the planet, Apocalypse Culture and Apocalypse Culture II, among others. Everyone, no matter who you are, is bound to find something to like in the Feral House nonfiction backlist.
Take, for example, our current specimen. A book on profiling serial killers. The first, to my knowledge, written by an actual serial killer to tackle this topic. Not just any old serial killer, mind you, but half the team known as the Moors Murderers. It's not as good as if Feral House editor Adam Parfrey had channeled Jack the Ripper, but it's close enough for government work. And Brady does himself a pretty fine job of book-writing.
It becomes immediately obvious that Ian Brady is not your average criminal. Thirty years in the joint, with access to a library, has obviously done very good things to his mind. He is well-read, critical, and plainly-spoken (of the three nonfiction books that have crossed my path this month, Brady is the author head and shoulders in first place in all three categories). With regards to the readability factor, The Gates of Janus is an undeniable winner.
Colin Wilson's introduction (one wonders why Brady, who has more than a few derogatory words for Wilson's own profiling attempts, asked him to write the introduction; perhaps Parfrey did, instead) smacks ever so faintly of sour grapes, but it does provide a surprisingly objective view of the book to follow, and can be taken at face value; the real meat of this book is the second part, in which Brady applies his ideas of serial killer profiling to a number of actual serial killers, including two who were never caught. (One wonders, idly, whether his chapter on the Torso killer, aka the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run, is what has inspired renewed interest in the Torso case.) The first part Wilson refers to rather more derogatorily. I can't speak to it with an objective viewpoint, because I empathize far too much with Brady's words in the first section, as trite as some of them may be. The sociopath will find a great deal to enjoy in the first section; others may find that Wilson's estimation (which amounts to "self-aggrandizing silliness") is right on the money.
The Gates of Janus may be best read in tandem with (or just after) Bolitho's much earlier Murder for Profit, since the two have a good deal in common. Both Bolitho and Brady were groundbreakers in their books, both focus extensively on case studies while injecting a good deal of person insight into the cases, both are exceptionally easy to read and understand. One wishes Brady had focused on one of the same cases Bolitho did to see if eighty years of police work in the interim had made profiling any better. (One wonders, amused, what Brady would have done with the case of Fritz Haarmann!)
A few words on the afterword written by one of today's finest authors, Peter Sotos. It almost seems to poor boy is settling down, mellowing out. (Maybe all that talk about stomach cancer in his own books wasn't just blowing smoke.) It starts off sounding like a toned-down Sotos, but does eventually wend its way around to the subject of Brady and his book, which surprised me somewhat. And he does regain his old fire at the end, drawing the connections necessary to label the book as child pornography under Sotos' own definition of the term (the leaps in logic used to do this are worth the price of the book on their own), but it becomes, perhaps, obvious why Sotos has been under the radar for so long. Perhaps he's becoming a kinder, gentler misanthrope? Not that, mind you, the afterword is bad; it's as brilliant as anything else the man has done. But it's more focused, for want of a better term.
There is nothing I can say about this book, in summary, other than "read it." If you have problems with the first section, persevere; the case studies are more than worth it. *** ½
Feral House has a history of presenting some of the best nonfiction the planet has to offer, all of it under the table (except Nightmare of Ecstasy, the Edward D. Wood Jr. bio Tim Burton used as the basis for his film Ed Wood). This is criminal. Feral House releases nonfiction for people who don't like nonfiction; the autobiography of a person who spent over half his juvenile life in prison, a reprint of a medieval text called Tortures and Torments of the Christian Martyrs, biographies of Anton LaVey, and the two most necessary anthologies of critical writing on the planet, Apocalypse Culture and Apocalypse Culture II, among others. Everyone, no matter who you are, is bound to find something to like in the Feral House nonfiction backlist.
Take, for example, our current specimen. A book on profiling serial killers. The first, to my knowledge, written by an actual serial killer to tackle this topic. Not just any old serial killer, mind you, but half the team known as the Moors Murderers. It's not as good as if Feral House editor Adam Parfrey had channeled Jack the Ripper, but it's close enough for government work. And Brady does himself a pretty fine job of book-writing.
It becomes immediately obvious that Ian Brady is not your average criminal. Thirty years in the joint, with access to a library, has obviously done very good things to his mind. He is well-read, critical, and plainly-spoken (of the three nonfiction books that have crossed my path this month, Brady is the author head and shoulders in first place in all three categories). With regards to the readability factor, The Gates of Janus is an undeniable winner.
Colin Wilson's introduction (one wonders why Brady, who has more than a few derogatory words for Wilson's own profiling attempts, asked him to write the introduction; perhaps Parfrey did, instead) smacks ever so faintly of sour grapes, but it does provide a surprisingly objective view of the book to follow, and can be taken at face value; the real meat of this book is the second part, in which Brady applies his ideas of serial killer profiling to a number of actual serial killers, including two who were never caught. (One wonders, idly, whether his chapter on the Torso killer, aka the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run, is what has inspired renewed interest in the Torso case.) The first part Wilson refers to rather more derogatorily. I can't speak to it with an objective viewpoint, because I empathize far too much with Brady's words in the first section, as trite as some of them may be. The sociopath will find a great deal to enjoy in the first section; others may find that Wilson's estimation (which amounts to "self-aggrandizing silliness") is right on the money.
The Gates of Janus may be best read in tandem with (or just after) Bolitho's much earlier Murder for Profit, since the two have a good deal in common. Both Bolitho and Brady were groundbreakers in their books, both focus extensively on case studies while injecting a good deal of person insight into the cases, both are exceptionally easy to read and understand. One wishes Brady had focused on one of the same cases Bolitho did to see if eighty years of police work in the interim had made profiling any better. (One wonders, amused, what Brady would have done with the case of Fritz Haarmann!)
A few words on the afterword written by one of today's finest authors, Peter Sotos. It almost seems to poor boy is settling down, mellowing out. (Maybe all that talk about stomach cancer in his own books wasn't just blowing smoke.) It starts off sounding like a toned-down Sotos, but does eventually wend its way around to the subject of Brady and his book, which surprised me somewhat. And he does regain his old fire at the end, drawing the connections necessary to label the book as child pornography under Sotos' own definition of the term (the leaps in logic used to do this are worth the price of the book on their own), but it becomes, perhaps, obvious why Sotos has been under the radar for so long. Perhaps he's becoming a kinder, gentler misanthrope? Not that, mind you, the afterword is bad; it's as brilliant as anything else the man has done. But it's more focused, for want of a better term.
There is nothing I can say about this book, in summary, other than "read it." If you have problems with the first section, persevere; the case studies are more than worth it. *** ½
September 17, 2012
What do you get when Feral House along with famed true crime author Colin Wilson and the infamous creator of PURE, Peter Sotos team up to release a book on 'The Moores Murderer' Ian Brady?
You get one of the most intense, honest(well as honest as a sociopath gets)and brutally vivid insights into one of Britain's notorious serial killers.
Colin Wilson kicks off the book with an introduction and his relative stories in his communications with the notorious Moore's Murderer
The beauty of this book is the fact that Ian Brady discusses and evaluates himself as well as deconstructing Western Society's thin vale that separates the 'Serial Killer' and the soldier who goes and kills for whatever the next political boogyman is. He describes in great detail many aspects of the murderers mind for a little over half the book.
The next part of the book is Ian Brady breaking down other infamous Serial Killers such as John Wayne Gacey, Ted Bundy, Henry Lee Lucas and the British poisoner Graham Young, with whom Ian Brady was locked up with. Then comes the part where that ole Sadistic shadow Peter Sotos shares his views on one of his favorite deviants and the nefarious recordings of little Lesley Downey's pleas to Ian Brady and his willing partner in crime, Mira Hindley for her life and of course to her "Mum".
I will now leave you with a apt quote from the book:
"The plain and perhaps regrettable fact is that it is part of eternal human psyche
and cycle for the normal individual to derive cathartic satisfaction and enjoyment
from savoring the crimes of others, and from luxuriously dreaming of ways or personally
committing them. Similar cathartic satisfaction is afforded by contemplating the punishment
of those who are caught. Nobody likes a loser and therefore we believe they get what they deserve.
What do you believe you deserve for the undetected crimes and secret moral outrages you
have committed in thought or action? Absolution?"
You get one of the most intense, honest(well as honest as a sociopath gets)and brutally vivid insights into one of Britain's notorious serial killers.
Colin Wilson kicks off the book with an introduction and his relative stories in his communications with the notorious Moore's Murderer
The beauty of this book is the fact that Ian Brady discusses and evaluates himself as well as deconstructing Western Society's thin vale that separates the 'Serial Killer' and the soldier who goes and kills for whatever the next political boogyman is. He describes in great detail many aspects of the murderers mind for a little over half the book.
The next part of the book is Ian Brady breaking down other infamous Serial Killers such as John Wayne Gacey, Ted Bundy, Henry Lee Lucas and the British poisoner Graham Young, with whom Ian Brady was locked up with. Then comes the part where that ole Sadistic shadow Peter Sotos shares his views on one of his favorite deviants and the nefarious recordings of little Lesley Downey's pleas to Ian Brady and his willing partner in crime, Mira Hindley for her life and of course to her "Mum".
I will now leave you with a apt quote from the book:
"The plain and perhaps regrettable fact is that it is part of eternal human psyche
and cycle for the normal individual to derive cathartic satisfaction and enjoyment
from savoring the crimes of others, and from luxuriously dreaming of ways or personally
committing them. Similar cathartic satisfaction is afforded by contemplating the punishment
of those who are caught. Nobody likes a loser and therefore we believe they get what they deserve.
What do you believe you deserve for the undetected crimes and secret moral outrages you
have committed in thought or action? Absolution?"
August 7, 2018
“Gates of Janus” is written by Ian bloody Brady. -
A little shit of an author, incredibly arrogant and if I’m honest, his arguments fall flat. I agree he’s intelligent, but his writing highlights more ego than anything else. Because yes, this book is Brady’s justification and analysis of the serial killer. -
He places himself on some weird plane of both victim and brave explorer of life’s darker elements. Brady looks at other famous killers, such as Ted Bundy (who I believe he has a celebrity crush on) and analyses their behaviour. He glosses over their crimes, almost jealously, and places himself ‘above’ them by sighting their faults, failings and personality as a criminal.
He considers government officials, and perhaps the everyday person as not being all good, and therefore not so distant and disconnected from a killer. We are all capable of bad, but most of us are too scared or restricted by society to have the strength to kill.
I recommend this read purely as ‘interest’ piece, but this writing isn’t anything I would read if it were not penned by Mr Brady himself.
A little shit of an author, incredibly arrogant and if I’m honest, his arguments fall flat. I agree he’s intelligent, but his writing highlights more ego than anything else. Because yes, this book is Brady’s justification and analysis of the serial killer. -
He places himself on some weird plane of both victim and brave explorer of life’s darker elements. Brady looks at other famous killers, such as Ted Bundy (who I believe he has a celebrity crush on) and analyses their behaviour. He glosses over their crimes, almost jealously, and places himself ‘above’ them by sighting their faults, failings and personality as a criminal.
He considers government officials, and perhaps the everyday person as not being all good, and therefore not so distant and disconnected from a killer. We are all capable of bad, but most of us are too scared or restricted by society to have the strength to kill.
I recommend this read purely as ‘interest’ piece, but this writing isn’t anything I would read if it were not penned by Mr Brady himself.
November 28, 2007
This book is so brilliant. It's considered one of the most comprehensive, intelligent books ever written on profiling serial killers, as well it should be. It was written by Ian Brady, the Moors Murder.
Touching on general profiling, profiles of several notorious killers, and delving into the authors own philosophies regarding relative morality.
This is not a "true crime" book or an easy read-It's more of a philosophy/text book, and can get very technical, so if you're looking for Ann Rule, keep walkin'.
Touching on general profiling, profiles of several notorious killers, and delving into the authors own philosophies regarding relative morality.
This is not a "true crime" book or an easy read-It's more of a philosophy/text book, and can get very technical, so if you're looking for Ann Rule, keep walkin'.
November 17, 2012
One of the most well written true crime books I have read. That being said, the most affecting part of the book was Sotos' epilogue. It is visceral, scathing, and the perfect wake up. Brady is incredibly seductive in his writing, anesthetizing his and other serial killers' acts, making them social rather than personal. What is interesting here is not so much what Brady has to say, but why he says it--his motivations, his beliefs, and how much (if any, or perhaps all) is genuine.
July 25, 2008
I just started this book, "The Gates of Janus: Serial Killing and its Analysis", and it already has my attention. This book is written by serial killer, Ian Brady (The Moors Murderer) and provides a unique insight.
July 20, 2010
Interesting stories, bitchy point of view from the Author. Brady is quite the narcissist...
July 6, 2017
Ian Brady: Murderous, narcisisstic twat or deep thinker? You decide. I can't be arsed.
November 24, 2015
Incredible and powerful and highly disturbing.
April 16, 2023
The most boring “in the mind of a killer” book you will ever read.
June 18, 2023
This much I knew going in:
-Ian Brady was a narcissist and an unrepentant child murderer.
-He was of above average intelligence and had a lot of time on his hands to read.
-He was a master manipulator.
His text brought nothing new to the table. He’s good at taking the ideas of others, decorating them with fancy phrasing, and twisting them enough to justify his actions. But was he an intellectual? Nope, he just….wasn’t.
Did this book send forensic psychiatrists across the globe scrambling for their DSMs and a highlighter? Yeah… no.
Did I personally see anything at all that I didn’t already know about the mind of a serial killer? Also no.
I will say that watching him in action was mildly interesting- an oddity to add to my collection at best.
What was new for me (and kind of sad) is how easily Colin Wilson was manipulated. He fell under Ian’s spell- so, so hard. The entire introduction was basically me cringing for 32 pages. (When he describes getting choked up when Ian sent him a tape with clips from A Christmas Carol? OH, COME ON, COLIN).
But the biggest surprise for me was Peter Sotos’ afterward. It’s not particularly well written and probably 3 pages too long, but it succeeds in doing what apparently no one else involved in this publication could or would do: it calls Brady out on his bullshit. If a book needs Peter Sotos of all people to bring us back to reality, there’s something clearly amiss.
-Ian Brady was a narcissist and an unrepentant child murderer.
-He was of above average intelligence and had a lot of time on his hands to read.
-He was a master manipulator.
His text brought nothing new to the table. He’s good at taking the ideas of others, decorating them with fancy phrasing, and twisting them enough to justify his actions. But was he an intellectual? Nope, he just….wasn’t.
Did this book send forensic psychiatrists across the globe scrambling for their DSMs and a highlighter? Yeah… no.
Did I personally see anything at all that I didn’t already know about the mind of a serial killer? Also no.
I will say that watching him in action was mildly interesting- an oddity to add to my collection at best.
What was new for me (and kind of sad) is how easily Colin Wilson was manipulated. He fell under Ian’s spell- so, so hard. The entire introduction was basically me cringing for 32 pages. (When he describes getting choked up when Ian sent him a tape with clips from A Christmas Carol? OH, COME ON, COLIN).
But the biggest surprise for me was Peter Sotos’ afterward. It’s not particularly well written and probably 3 pages too long, but it succeeds in doing what apparently no one else involved in this publication could or would do: it calls Brady out on his bullshit. If a book needs Peter Sotos of all people to bring us back to reality, there’s something clearly amiss.
August 25, 2021
I guess people who have never read a single philosophy text would find the first part of Brady’s text interesting, but the dry, overly academic excuse for moral relativism is, at best, a lame attempt at edginess. His analysis of individual serial killers is tolerable at best. Most of my stars go to Peter Sotos’ scathing, over-annotated rant that closes out the book, to be honest.
May 31, 2025
Well, I won't forget this book in a hurry.
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