Chambers of Horror: Monstrous Crimes of Incarceration

by John Marlowe

In 1984 abusive father Josef Fritzl drugged his 18-year-old daughter with ether and imprisoned her in a dungeon under his house - she wasn't to see daylight for 24 years.

Down-and-out millionaire Gary Heidnik wallpapered his hallway with $5 bills, anointed himself bishop of his own religion and began collecting 'wives,' women he abducted from the street and kept in chains.

Bondage freak Izabela Lewicka willingly signed a 115-item contract giving John Edward Robinson complete control over her life, but she never imagined it was a license to kill.

Chambers of Horror is a study of the warped thinking that went into some of the world's most macabre crimes, as well as a clinical examination of the purpose-built rooms hidden spaces and soundproof dungeons increasingly prepared for victims.

Cases include: Josef Fritzl, Ariel Castro, Anthony Sowell, Michael Alig, Robert Berdella, Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka, David and Catherine Birnie, Jerry Brudos, Reginald Christie, Marc Dutroux, Philip and Nancy Garrido, Fritz Haarmann, H. H. Holmes, John T. Jamelske, and Joachim Kroll.

Author John Marlowe specializes in providing concise yet detailed case-by-case examinations of dangerous individuals. Here he presents a carefully chosen cross-section of some of the world's most depraved modern criminals, whose fascinating life stories are viewed with an unflinching gaze, making for a chilling yet engrossing read. Perfect bedtime reading for those who want to know what is going on in those hidden, dark places the sun never reaches - where looking down the back of the sofa could lead to a very scary discovery.

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction, Crime

208 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 2011

Reviews

[Val ⚓️ Shameless Handmaiden ⚓️ · Rating 2 out of 5]

1.5 Stars

This was very meh. I was expecting in-depth cases studies and got overly dramatized, poorly written snippets (1-4 pages apiece, on average) with very little actual information beyond that of the surface variety.

In fact, I already knew more about the cases I was interested than this book provided. I suppose if you are not a weird freak like me who has already read a lot about serial killers and other crazy cases, you might get something out of this; but, for those like me, who have been interested in true crime and true crime memoirs already, this one offers nothing.

[Travis · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book covers 28 true crime cases. However, to say they are all cases of forcible confinement would be a lie. About 16 cases in the book clearly contain forcible confinement. For example, Michael Alig, the first case in the book, murders his roommate during an argument. Unless you count keeping the body, this case does not involve forcible confinement. Several cases like this, while other cases are so vague on the details that I couldn't tell if there was forcible confinement or not. For the 16 cases that clearly do have forcible confinement, the time span for the confinement ranged from hours to 24 years.

Additionally, this book had a big factual error concerning the Ariel Castro case. It states that Amanda Berry experienced 5 pregnancies that Castro ended in miscarriage through starvation and beatings. However, this happened to Michelle Knight and it was reported to have happened to Michelle Knight as early as May 9, 2013. This book was published in November 2013, so there is no excuse for this error. This type of error makes me question what errors might be in the other cases that I am less familiar with.

If you are interested in cases of forcible confinement, I recommend the following cases and reading:
Steven Stayner - "I Know My First Name is Steven" by Mike Echols.
Sharon Marshall - "A Beautiful Child" by Matt Birbeck
Sabine Dardenne - "I Choose to Live" by Sabine Dardenne
Jaycee Dugard - "A Stolen Life" by Jaycee Dugard
Natascha Kampusch - "3,096 Days" by Natascha Kampusch
Elizabeth Smart
Katie Beers
Tanya Nicole Kach
Shasta and Dylan Groene
Paul Martin Andrews
Katya Mamontova and Lena Samokhina
Shawn Hornbeck and Ben Ownby

[Grace · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poorly written, with mistakes and not enough detail. Wasn't expecting much, though. Did include some serial killers I'd never heard of, so I guess that's a plus. P.S. WHY THE EFF DOES NATASCHA KAMPUSCH MOURN THE DEATH OF THE MAN WHO HELD HER CAPTIVE HER ENTIRE CHILDHOOD?

[Fishface · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good summaries of a variety of cases

I grabbed this one because it's the only book I've ever seen that offered a chapter on John Jamelske. All the chapters were good reading even though many of the cases were pretty familiar and well-worn. A decent study explainng why some people are a waste of oxygen.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

True crime containing several killers. Quick read. Some of them I had read about and some I had not.

[Wendi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Picked this book up from the bargain bin at the bookstore. Not a bad read but could have been better. Typically I like short chapters but I feel like some of these cases could have been a little longer or could have had more information on them. Surprisingly, only a few were familiar to me despite my life-long curiosity of serial killers. Will definitely look more into some of them.

[Jack Bruno · Rating 1 out of 5]

Man oh man, this was a trash book. It was like a stream of wiki articles that I couldn't put down. Great for folks with morbid interests, like myself, who also love random photos, poor writing and half facts! Truly the salty snack of the literary world.

[Olga Koran · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish there were some more details but HOLY GUACAMOLE! Morbid stuff for real. Mind blowing to know that evil scums like this exist. Hope they rot in hell for sure. Okay bye :)

[R-mig · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't mean to disrespect the victims or their families by my five-star rating of this book.
I'm giving these five stars for the dedication of the author in giving a voice to the voiceless. I can't begin to understand the reasons behind these barbaric crimes. All those souls that were lost because different deranged criminals woke up one day and chose violence. Something that I will never acquire.

The victims were not nameless. They had names. They may have even had bright futures if lived. Some of them even had the most common names, those which we encounter every day like Gemma, Victoria, Natascha, Michael, and so many more.

I understand how difficult it was for Marlowe to write this book.
It was difficult for me to give it a suitable rating. I thought long and hard. Would my rating reflect the author's work, one which was only possible after heinous crimes? Or would my choice of rating be a reflection of the crimes committed? By no means do I relate to these criminals. And I never want to. Even after so many years, I send my condolences to those members who are still alive. I grimaced so many times while I was reading. At this rate, it's impossible to count. I'm externally sorry to the victims because of the unfortunate fate that they were met with.

I'm sorry the world can be so cruel.

[laura smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full of information I hadn't read before, well written and easy to follow. I'm not convinced it fits it's brief of solely viewing those who 'confined' others but never the less was interesting. Quite shocking and horrifying but sadly, that is the nature of these types of criminals. Recommended for anyone looking for well presented overview

Read the above! Written in wrong box d'oh!!! Shocking but interesting insight into backgrounds of these criminals and in some instances also of the victims. Heart breaking

[Доберман Сатэ · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think this book is aimed for people starting to study criminal psychology, or serial killers. Not a bad book, but not a good one either. It has info ration about some killers, but it doesn’t have depth or sense. I didn’t like it very much, but I’ve been reading these subjects for years. So if you are a beginner this book is a good start.

[October · Rating 3 out of 5]

While very interesting (and extremely sad) this book was rather poorly written and read like several dozen wikipedia pages thrown into one book. Each chapter features a different killer but doesn't go into great detail about the killer's childhood and upbringing, nor the life of the victims.

[Queen Kong · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good to know how killers minds work but a damn shame to all the lives that was loss to their senseless acts .

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

A frightening book about male serial killers. It’s hard to believe there are so many of them walking among us.

[Chase · Rating 2 out of 5]

Shoddy research at best. Not even a good primer.

[Janice · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 stars

[Lisa Elkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great true crime book. It's like Cliff Notes of serial killers. Short synopsis of many different killers. However, the book actually has 304 pages.

[A Leah · Rating 1 out of 5]

Meh. Wasn’t anything in depth, very basic information was given. I was also turned off at author’s outdated language: mentally retarded, transsexual. I can see why this book was in the bargain bin.

[Doghouse Gav · Rating 4 out of 5]

Informative

Good little detailed story's on each kil!er. Not long winded or heavy. Good little read and very informative. Pictures are a nice touch. Maybe needed more

[Mackenzie Ricke · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has a lot of interesting information in it. However, nothing too in depth. The writing is not all that great but it makes for a quick read if you stick to it.

[sev soreno · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a couple of other reviews have stated, it is poorly written. But as someone who is very curious about true crime, it was still very enjoyable and the photos made it much more chilling.

[Donna Maguire · Rating 4 out of 5]

I do love a good true crime book and had this one to read for a while and have finally got around to sitting down and reading it. Whilst I know the basic stories of the majority of the people featured in the book, reading them all together does give you the chills to know that there are people out there capable of this behaviour. 4 stars from me and its an ideal book to use as an introduction to the manay different 'monsters' featured to go away and read about them in more depth.

[Shannon · Rating 1 out of 5]

The content here was whatever. I don’t think that I was even able to form an opinion on the stories in this because of two extremely annoying aspects of the book. Both are kind of petty, but they seriously ruined things for me. The first I’m fairly sure must be a regional difference, but the dates were displayed as ’31 October 1997’ instead of ‘October 31, 1997’. My brain straight up rejected the order and I had to take the time to switch it as I read. No joke, it gave me headaches, especially since each page in my ebook had dates mentioned at least five times.

The worst parts of the book though were the pictures. I’m not the type of person that wants to see gory crime scenes or dead bodies. That said, about half of the ones in this were really lame stock photos that vaguely related to a line in a section. For example, there’d be a generic photo of a random man dressed as Santa Clause with a caption saying ‘so-and-so used to play Santa at kid’s parties’. It reminded me of those cheesy pictures that showed up in school textbooks. There were a string of times where an object would be mentioned with a corresponding picture slapped next to it. Random photos of people ice fishing, a rabbit, a pick/hammer, pill bottle etc. The weirdest was this partially broken down butchered chicken that had me wondering why the hell they would add something like that in.

[Tim Clafton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love that this covers crimes from all over and through times it has old and new there is some I have never heard of witch was nice. There is alot in this book but with that it breaks down everything to short stories. I wish that the book was longer or covered less people so that each story had more information and not feel so rushed. This book definitely grabs you but leaves you wanting more. This book has made me want to dive deeper into a few of the crimes to learn more. I would say if you want a quick read and learn this is your book but if you want more details on a specific monster look elsewhere. I would recommend this book however for anyone looking for a quick crime fix

[K · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't feel the text was particularly well-written. There were a few errors, one of them being the wrong named used at one point. The sentence structures were sometimes odd and confusing to follow. The title also didn't seem to fit all the cases - not all of the cases involved someone being kidnapped and murdered, some of the victims were just killed after a domestic incident.

Short summaries of crimes that have occurred; goes into detail in some aspects, and then completely glazes over certain other aspects.

[Μαρία · Rating 4 out of 5]

Πόσο μακριά μπορεί να φτάσει ο ανθρώπινος νους για να ικανοποιήσει τις διαστροφές του; Να σε τι απαντάει τούτο εδώ το βιβλίο, το οποίο περιέχει 26 ιστορίες, αρκετές φωτογραφίες σε περισσότερες από 200 σελίδες. Ωστόσο, δεν υπάρχουν αρκετές λεπτομέρειες για την καθεμιά ιστορία του. Καλύτερα, θα μου πείτε.

Οι περισσοτερες ιστορίες του είναι γνωστές αλλά υπάρχουν και λιγότερο γνωστές στο ευρύ κοινό, που, αν μη τί άλλο, σε κάνουν να ανατριχιάζεις το ίδιο. Αν πρόκειται για αγαπημένο σας είδος, το προτείνω, αν όχι, διαλέξτε κάτι πιο όμορφο, γλυκό και τρυφερό για να περάσει ευχάριστα η ώρα σας...

[Meryem · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an easy read fun book, but it gets a bit monotone after a while, the cases are more told like reports than as stories. The gruesome details I was hoping for didn't come forward that much. Also if you're a bit paranoid don't read this because you might start trusting people a little less.

[Lauretta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very Good Short Stories

I really enjoyed reading this book. It has short stories, that are straight to the point. There is no elaborating. The story telling keeps you wondering. A very good book.

[Ann W · Rating 5 out of 5]

As far as this type of book goes, I found it informative. Learned more about several killers I already knew of. Also a couple I'd never heard of. Regarding the information and style of writing, it's a 5 star read for me.

[Carol Ringrose · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quiet disturbing that the killers were once loose to roam the streets and find innocent victims

Very sad for victims.
Mental health if not treated can be dangerous to individual as not in full control of their minds