Jump to ratings and reviews
Rate this book

Serial Killers Encyclopedia: The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers from A to Z

Rate this book
Alternate Cover Edition for ASIN B00HHB136U

WARNING: This book contains several crime scene photos that are graphic in nature and may be very disturbing to some people. Do not proceed if under the age of 18 or are disturbed by scenes of death and violence.

The ultimate reference for anyone compelled by the pathology and twisted minds behind the most disturbing of homicidal monsters. From A to Z, and from around the world, these serial killers have killed in excess of 3,000 innocent victims, affecting thousands of friends and family members. There are monsters in this book that you may not have heard of, but you won't forget them after reading their case. This reference book will make a great collection for true crime aficionados.

WARNING: There are 15 dramatic crime scene photos in this book that some may find extremely disturbing

Available in eBook, Paperback and Audiobook editions


"A compendium of 101 serial killers in "Reader's Digest" style. A recommended reference book of madmen and women"
--- Publisher's Weekly

"Serial Killers Encyclopedia is a treasure of depravity and a must for anyone who likes to read True Crime and the darkest side of the subject. The book gives you plenty of detail upon each the Serial Killers including dates, victims,and the outcome of each case. The word count on each case is perfect for spurt reading that is if you can put it down without going into the next case. No wasted fluff in the writing just right to the facts. As a bonus you also get an extra write-up from JJ Slate contributing to the 101 Serial Killer so you get a taste of her very impressive style of writing for her new book Missing Wives, Missing Lives"
--- Kipp Poe Speicher Amazon Vine Reviewer

"Here's a chilling and engrossing collection of killers, presented with no nonsense.
Perfect for a True Grue Crime fix!"
--- David Bischoff NYT Bestselling Author of over 80 books

There are 101 stories in this book. The last chapter is on the Long Island Serial Killer written by Jennifer J Slate

"A good read; great reference tool for true crime book addicts and contains just the facts, no glitter, no embellishments, just facts on 101 serial killers."
--- Serial Killers Magazine

445 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 31, 2014

344 people are currently reading
395 people want to read

About the author

R.J. Parker

84 books178 followers
RJ Parker, P.Mgr., MCrim, is an award winning and bestselling true crime author and co-owner with his daughters of RJ Parker Publishing. Inc. He has written 17 true crime books, available in eBook, paperback and audiobook editions, and have sold in over 100 countries. He holds Certifications in Serial Crime and Criminal Profiling.

ALL Paperbacks under RJ Parker Publishing are in the KINDLE MATCHBOOK program: When you purchase any print book, you get the eBook for FREE

Besides gifting books to his cause, Wounded Warriors, and donating to Victims of Violent Crimes, RJ has daily contests on Facebook where he gifts eBooks and autographed books.

Join RJ on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/AuthorRJParker
Email - authorrjparker@gmail.com
Website - http://rjparkerpublishing.com/

Member of the Canadian Association of Authors
Member of the Writer's Alliance of Newfoundland

Ratings & Reviews

What do you think?
Rate this book

Friends & Following

Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!

Community Reviews

5 stars
113 (28%)
4 stars
104 (26%)
3 stars
109 (27%)
2 stars
49 (12%)
1 star
18 (4%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 41 reviews
Profile Image for Alicia Huxtable.
1,912 reviews60 followers
July 13, 2019
Disturbing

This book, while fascinating, was a whole load of disturbing. At some chapters I didn't think I would be able to continue reading.
Author 6 books35 followers
March 16, 2015
Full review at The Crime Cove Book Review Blog

This is a great book for someone new to true crime or someone who prefers short works and compendiums. If you want to know the gist of the crimes of the most depraved serial killers in history, then this book will give you that information. Included are 100 serial killer cases recounting the main facts of their horrific deeds and their sentencing.

As with all of RJ Parker's works, this one is well researched and full of information. In spite of the short style of each case, the author does a spectacular job at retelling the events in a factual, objective and succinct manner.

Highly recommend this one to fans of True Crime new and old.
Profile Image for Jennifer.
385 reviews7 followers
May 31, 2014
This is not a book for someone who does not like short works or compendiums. But if you want to now want to know what evil can walk among us unknown and what the warpped mind of a serial killer can do to many victims and families then this book will give you that information. This book has 100 killers and tells you the main idea of their killings and what their was sentencing was. As with all of RJ Parker's works this one is well researched and full of information on the serial killers within the pages.
Profile Image for Mirhanda.
425 reviews6 followers
January 2, 2018
There are many factual mistakes in this book. The grammar is atrocious and it seems the author uses words he does not know the meaning of. I would not recommend this book because of all the factual errors. The cover touts photographs, but in fact there are none.


SPOILER

The author actually has Dr. Kevorkian listed as a serial killer, when in fact he was a passionate advocate of death with dignity. He assisted in suicides of terminally ill people who wanted to end their own suffering. His tireless campaigning has led to changes in laws to allow assisted suicide.
Profile Image for Jessica Hintzman wurtzler.
6 reviews
December 4, 2014
ENJOYED THIS BOOK! Highly recommend it to anyone interested in true crime, 306 pages filled with 100 short stories (a few pages each). Very interesting because most of the crimes took place many, many years ago, and the more recent crimes had some info I hadn’t heard before. The picture selection is very graphic so DO NOT just flip through the book without preparing yourself first (like I did!) In the paperback edition the pictures start on page 291.
12 reviews1 follower
December 11, 2014
Pretty good reference book

Very informative. A brief synopsis on each killer. I liked it very much. Look forward to reading more of this author's work.
Profile Image for Daryl Forbes.
30 reviews
January 4, 2015
Great book

Very informative and easy to read. Once I started to read the book, I could not put it down. I lover it. 5 stars
Profile Image for heather king.
5 reviews
August 11, 2015
Good read

Because it was short stories,it kept it easy to put down when needed, but eager to pick back up and continue on.
Profile Image for melotato.
94 reviews
August 11, 2025
I wish I could give this negative stars. I only made it to page 81 of 336 before having to give it up. The writing is terrible and I have no idea how something with so many typos (in the first chapter and including the misspelling of people’s names no less) was allowed to be published. It’s hard to believe that an adult wrote this, it reads more like a bunch of sixth graders were told to research serial killers and write two to three page reports on them. I truly can’t emphasize enough how poorly this is written. I don’t recommend this and I most certainly wouldn’t read anything else by this author either. Horrible.
Profile Image for Ada Lavin.
84 reviews5 followers
May 30, 2017
It is exactly what it says it is

The Serial Killers Encyclopedia is just that, a brief to the point encyclopedia of serial killers. It is a fountain of basic information on 100 of people who you would never want to meet in a dark alley. Just enough information for you to decide if you want to read a more in-depth book about one of these very scary people.

Well written, concise and to the point R.J. Parker does a very great job of introducing us to this group of people.
Profile Image for Susan.
169 reviews11 followers
May 6, 2018
Got this as a free download from Kindle Prime and was so disappointed in it. I read about a third of this book and had to abandon it because it was so badly written. The grammar is often appalling and I don’t know how it got through proof-reading or editing. It’s a compendium of short, couple of pages, descriptions of serial killers both recent and in the past. However, the fascinating subject matter has been rendered stale and uninteresting by the flat writing.
92 reviews
December 27, 2017
Like Reading a Telephone Book

I'm not sure why Mr.?Dr. Parker is considered an author. There is little creativity in writing a "grocery list" of serial killers. He gives almost no insight into motives.
It was not worth the time it took for me to read about 10% of the book. I gave it one star because there is nothing lower. I do not recommend this book
Profile Image for Barbara Collins.
279 reviews8 followers
September 19, 2017
got for free and absolutely love to read
must read this
I couldn't stop reading it and I have never heard of these killers before
5 stars and I had it at 6 stars but chapter 16 & 23 are the same story SMH
Profile Image for michelle burns.
29 reviews
May 2, 2018
Repetitive

For the most it was an interesting read.
The disappointing part for me was team serial killers, same information displayed in different parts of the book.
Contains very graphic and gruesome information on how their poor victims life was ended.
22 reviews
August 8, 2017
A good overview

This book is a good but very shallow overview of a very complex subject. This book contains 101 chapters. It should probably be 101 separate books.
Profile Image for Sandra Burns.
1,801 reviews41 followers
October 6, 2017
Great read

This was really interesting. I especially enjoyed the cases from the 1800 era, and those not in the USA. The female ones were really good also.
Profile Image for Eoin Dempsey.
Author 37 books1,047 followers
January 12, 2018
Good stories, poor writing.

This book needs a good polishing. The writing was poor, though the facts were interesting. The poor writing was a constant distraction.
2 reviews
February 5, 2018
Poorly written

Great content, but given the grammatical errors, poor sentence structure and all around horrible editing it is amazing this book got published.
7 reviews
August 16, 2018
Errors

You need to learn to s p e and how to use grammar properly. Like it was written by a ten year old.
Profile Image for Jim.
113 reviews21 followers
December 15, 2018
Pretty basic overview

Not a lot of meat, but you get some idea if the number of sick people out there. Two stars.
1 review
February 26, 2020
I stopped at the first line when the author misidentified the great Robert Ressler of the FBI’s original Behavioral Science Unit as “Ronald” Ressler. Really?!
Profile Image for Karen.
117 reviews2 followers
March 7, 2018
The content is ok. The grammar is completely horrific. Reading more books by the same author hurts my brain. The use of "he seen" and similar grammatical errors from someone with a PhD is mind-boggling.
1 review
February 15, 2018
Good read!

Good read!! Kept me wanting to read until I finished the whole book very interesting and informative well put together
Profile Image for Lynn Smith.
267 reviews6 followers
July 3, 2015
I was really disappointed in this book. However, part of my disappointment is my own and not necessarily the fault of the book. I wanted more in depth but the title is "Serial Killers Abridged". My other disappointment is many of the killers included weren't well-known (or even known, really) and many were from outside the U.S. Of course, it didn't say U.S. serial killers in the title, so once again the fault there is my own.

The book has way too many mistakes for my taste. It would have benefitted from more editing. There are just too many things that are either misspelled, left out words, bad punctuation, etc etc. I think one more go-over by an editor might have helped but my eye on these things may be far more critical than some.

All of that being said, it wasn't a bad book. The virtues of the book is that each chapter is short (2-3 pages) and the book can be read quickly. Also, since it's an "encyclopedia" (that's what the title claims at least), it may not have meant to be read from cover to cover. I do think even an abridged version could have contained a little more detail than was presented. And I'm not even sure some of the people included could truly be described as a "serial killer". But then again, where do you draw the line? Oh you only killed 4 people, you're not a serial killer sorry? I do not know the answer to this question.

Still, the price was right (99 cents) and it wasn't a complete waste of time and I did learn that there are serial killers in every part of the country. Who would have thought? I thought the U.S. was the only country where mass killings happen.
Profile Image for Black Butterfly.
2,642 reviews39 followers
February 14, 2016
IT ALWAYS AMAZES ME WHAT SOME PEOPLE ARE CAPABLE OF DOING TO ANOTHER HUMAN BEING. I’VE READ TRUE CRIME STORIES FOR MANY YEARS SO MANY OF THE STORIES IN THIS BOOK I’D READ BEFORE. THE ONE THING I REALLY NOTICED WAS HOW MANY OF THE KILLERS WERE ARRESTED REPEATELY, DID THEIR TIME GOT OUT THEN DID SOMETHE EVEN WORST. OUR LAWS DON’T MAKE SENSE TO ME, SOMETIMES IT’S GREAT BUT THEN IN CASES LIKE THESE IT CONTINUES TO FAIL US. THE VERY LAWS THAT ARE SUPPOSE TO PROTECT US TURN AROUND AND F*CK US UP. I GUESS THAT’S THE PRICE WE PAY FOR DEMOCRACY. WE NEED TO FIX THE HOLES IN OUR LAWS SINCE WE HAVE TO LIVE AMONG REAL LIVE MONSTERS. THE FACT THAT THE AUTHORITIES ARE FULLY AWARE OF WHAT THEY ARE CAPABLE OF DOING AND IN SO MANY CASES THEY LET THEM OUT ANYWAY. FRIGHTENING TO KNOW THAT LIFE AND NO POSSIBLITY OF PAROL DOESN’T ACTUALLY MEAN THAT THESE MONSTERS WILL STAY LOCKED UP. THE DEATH PENALTY DOES NOT MEAN IMMEDIATE DEATH THEY CAN APPEAL FOR YEARS AND YEARS, STAYING ON DEATH ROW SO LONG THEY CAN DIE OF NATURAL CAUSES. WE ARE IN DEEP DO-DO, UP THAT CREEK WITH OUT A BOAT OR PADDLE. ;(
Profile Image for Brittani Milligan Edwards.
109 reviews
February 8, 2025
Everyone knows I love all things true crime especially serial killers! This book wasn’t a story like type each “chapter” if you could even call them that was just a serial killer their crimes and what came of them. More of a serial killer encyclopedia. I enjoyed reading it. The crime scene photos at the end got to me. One of those “I’ve seen this crap in movies and shows hundreds of time no biggie” then it settling in that these are real people in the pictures and real horrible shit was done to them and reading about it. It was tough.
3 reviews1 follower
May 26, 2015
I do get the point that this is abridged to be short and to the point, otherwise this volume would be enormous. I liked that there were some lesser known killers mentioned. I did not like the organization of the book--placing killers in order based on first name instead of last name. The writing was hard to get through and I would have been better off searching the internet for information. I expected there to be a more extensive list of references than was mentioned.
Profile Image for Addie .
123 reviews1 follower
September 9, 2015
Mediocre. Reads like a 6th grade report.

I would give zero stars if I could. I had to fight to get through this awful excuse of a book. Poor editing. Poor grammar. Poor everything. At times, you wonder if English is this "writers" first language. It was like I was reading reports by children. I suggest not reading this "book." Want a really good book to read? "The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers." By Michael Newton
Displaying 1 - 30 of 41 reviews

Can't find what you're looking for?

Get help and learn more about the design.