What do you think?
Rate this book
Talking with Female Serial Killers: A Chilling Study of the Most Evil Women in the World
Christopher Berry-Dee, criminologist and bestselling author of books about the serial killers Aileen Wuornos and Joanne Dennehy, turns his uncompromising gaze upon women who not only kill, but kill repeatedly.Because female murderers, and especially serial murderers, are so rare compared with their male counterparts, this new study will surprise as well as shock, particularly in the cases of women like Beverley Allitt, who kill children, and Janie Lou Gibbs, who killed her three sons and a grandson, as well as her husband. Here too are women who kill under the influence of their male partners, such as Myra Hindley and Rosemary West, and whose lack of remorse for their actions is nothing short of chilling. But the author also turns his forensic gaze on female killers who were themselves victims, like Aileen Wuornos, whose killing spree, for which she was executed, can be traced directly to her treatment at the hands of men.Christopher Berry-Dee has no equal as the author of hard-hitting studies of the killers who often walk among us undetected for many years, and who in so many cases seem to be acting entirely against their natures.
281 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 17, 2018
187 people are currently reading
3661 people want to read
About the author
Christopher Berry-Dee
74 books340 followersChris was a former Royal Marine intelligence officer. He is now a criminologist who has interviewed over 30 serial killers.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 299 reviews
August 4, 2018
I had a lot of issues with this book, but not because of the reasons you would think (i.e.: reading about serial killers is disturbing and horrific, although yes, it kind of is that too).
It's probably easier if I just make a list:
1) TYPOS! This is a published book. Why the hell are there typos? And not just little minor things - it was major things like dates, which meant the chronological sequence of events got really confusing before you realised that they were just plain wrong.
2) THE AUTHOR. I mean, THIS GUY. THIS GUY. I have so many problems with him. So he gets subheadings:
a) This guy calls himself a criminologist, but I couldn't find any evidence of his actual qualifications or credentials.
b) He spends half the book pimping out his other work, or quoting people who have praised him. DUDE, WE GET IT. YOU LOVE YOURSELF.
c) He needlessly adds commentary where it isn't wanted or necessary.
d) He adds his thoughts on a woman's looks - not in a way that explains why it is relevant to events (if it even is), but like... his personal opinion. One woman (yeah, she was a serial killer, but that's not the point) he described as "fat and disgusting". And that is just one example.
3) THE COVER: it has an image of Myra Hindley on the front, but there are ZERO chapters or even pages dedicated to her. She is mentioned in passing once or twice, but there is no discussion around her psychology or crimes.
4) AND TO BE HONEST, THERE IS NO MENTION OF MUCH PSYCHOLOGY AT ALL. I thought this book would maybe delve into some, you know, actual science, or some reputable studies. But no, it seems to be the author's own opinion - or the opinion of someone else who has complimented him, and so he thinks they are great enough to be included.
5) THE TITLE: is also misleading. There is very little content dedicated to any actual conversations he has had with female serial killers. There are one or two bits, but overall, the book doesn't really get into that much at all. In fact, it is more just a collection of information about some female serial killers that have existed.
6) THE CONTENT: according to this book, a serial killer is one who kills three or more times with time between each "event". Some of the women talked about in this book don't even meet this definition. Some were just ONE OFF MURDERERS. I think the author included them because he thinks they would've gone on to become serial killers had they not been caught, but THAT ISN'T REALLY THE POINT OF THIS BOOK. IT ISN'T CALLED "TALKING TO ONE OFF FEMALE MURDERERS".
So basically, if you want to read a book by some under-qualified sexist egomaniac and which doesn't really provide what the title suggests, and is really just a book listing some women who have killed and saying what they did, then fine - read this. But otherwise, A BIG OLD NO FROM ME.
It's probably easier if I just make a list:
1) TYPOS! This is a published book. Why the hell are there typos? And not just little minor things - it was major things like dates, which meant the chronological sequence of events got really confusing before you realised that they were just plain wrong.
2) THE AUTHOR. I mean, THIS GUY. THIS GUY. I have so many problems with him. So he gets subheadings:
a) This guy calls himself a criminologist, but I couldn't find any evidence of his actual qualifications or credentials.
b) He spends half the book pimping out his other work, or quoting people who have praised him. DUDE, WE GET IT. YOU LOVE YOURSELF.
c) He needlessly adds commentary where it isn't wanted or necessary.
d) He adds his thoughts on a woman's looks - not in a way that explains why it is relevant to events (if it even is), but like... his personal opinion. One woman (yeah, she was a serial killer, but that's not the point) he described as "fat and disgusting". And that is just one example.
3) THE COVER: it has an image of Myra Hindley on the front, but there are ZERO chapters or even pages dedicated to her. She is mentioned in passing once or twice, but there is no discussion around her psychology or crimes.
4) AND TO BE HONEST, THERE IS NO MENTION OF MUCH PSYCHOLOGY AT ALL. I thought this book would maybe delve into some, you know, actual science, or some reputable studies. But no, it seems to be the author's own opinion - or the opinion of someone else who has complimented him, and so he thinks they are great enough to be included.
5) THE TITLE: is also misleading. There is very little content dedicated to any actual conversations he has had with female serial killers. There are one or two bits, but overall, the book doesn't really get into that much at all. In fact, it is more just a collection of information about some female serial killers that have existed.
6) THE CONTENT: according to this book, a serial killer is one who kills three or more times with time between each "event". Some of the women talked about in this book don't even meet this definition. Some were just ONE OFF MURDERERS. I think the author included them because he thinks they would've gone on to become serial killers had they not been caught, but THAT ISN'T REALLY THE POINT OF THIS BOOK. IT ISN'T CALLED "TALKING TO ONE OFF FEMALE MURDERERS".
So basically, if you want to read a book by some under-qualified sexist egomaniac and which doesn't really provide what the title suggests, and is really just a book listing some women who have killed and saying what they did, then fine - read this. But otherwise, A BIG OLD NO FROM ME.
September 30, 2020
If you are looking for a detailed, rational, well-written, non-hyperbole filled book then just walk away.
Horribly written, fantastical, overly dramatic, ADVERBS. SO MANY. Honestly, I'm not even sure this was edited. From the way the author is described, I actually thought he had some credentials in Criminology - that is not the case. It is incredibly patronizing to women - calling them 'the fairer sex' and desperately trying to give some sort of Victorian value to his awful wittering. He describes the female murderers in minute, creepy detail, particularly if they were attractive and takes immense pleasure in the alleged offers of sex or marriage.
I'm actually cringing as I write. I hate leaving bad reviews because I know the effect they can have being a writer myself, but honesty is the only gift I can give after trying to finish this book.
Horribly written, fantastical, overly dramatic, ADVERBS. SO MANY. Honestly, I'm not even sure this was edited. From the way the author is described, I actually thought he had some credentials in Criminology - that is not the case. It is incredibly patronizing to women - calling them 'the fairer sex' and desperately trying to give some sort of Victorian value to his awful wittering. He describes the female murderers in minute, creepy detail, particularly if they were attractive and takes immense pleasure in the alleged offers of sex or marriage.
I'm actually cringing as I write. I hate leaving bad reviews because I know the effect they can have being a writer myself, but honesty is the only gift I can give after trying to finish this book.
April 11, 2021
This is easily one of the worst books I've ever read. I can't believe it's an actual, published book – I even looked up the publisher online to check they were real.
Other reviews here mention how pompous, self-congratulatory and sexist the author comes across, and I agree with all of that. Also, as mentioned elsewhere, very little of the book consists of him actually talking to female serial killers (or females, or serial killers), and Myra Hindley, pictured on the cover, isn't featured at all.
But the worst parts are when the author quotes "facts" like, apparently, sexual violence occurring in 55% of lesbian relationships. No source cited, and no footnotes, endnotes or bibliography – so did he just pluck that ridiculous number out of the air? And for what? Just to be homophobic as well as sexist?
He makes mention of a town named "Bumble Bee Just Never Quite Made It", which does not exist (the only Google search result for that phrase is the Google Books page for this book). However, there is a ghost town called Bumble Bee, and this website (https://www.legendsofamerica.com/az-b...). titles its page about the town 'Bumble Bee Just Never Made It', so I can only assume he just glanced at the title of the page and didn't read it. It took me literally three seconds to fact-check that – and by 'fact-check' I just mean 'type it into Google'. But I guess the author and editor (assuming there was one) just didn't bother?
He also claims the following: "My book, Monster (John Blake Publishing, 2006) thoroughly details the life and crimes of Lee Wuornos. As stated earlier, this book formed the foundation of the movie by the same name, starring Charlize Theron." This movie came out in 2003. Now how would a movie released in 2003 be based on a book released three years later in 2006? In fact, the only claims that the movie was based on this book come from Berry-Dee's own book product pages, and it's blatantly obvious that he titled his book Monster to cash in on the movie's popularity, and not the other way around. Are authors allowed to just blatantly lie like this? Where was the editor? It's embarrassing to read.
Still, I did find this book useful for one thing: I noted his most egregious moments of smug self-congratulation in case I ever want to write something with a pompous, misogynist, unlikeable narrator.
Other reviews here mention how pompous, self-congratulatory and sexist the author comes across, and I agree with all of that. Also, as mentioned elsewhere, very little of the book consists of him actually talking to female serial killers (or females, or serial killers), and Myra Hindley, pictured on the cover, isn't featured at all.
But the worst parts are when the author quotes "facts" like, apparently, sexual violence occurring in 55% of lesbian relationships. No source cited, and no footnotes, endnotes or bibliography – so did he just pluck that ridiculous number out of the air? And for what? Just to be homophobic as well as sexist?
He makes mention of a town named "Bumble Bee Just Never Quite Made It", which does not exist (the only Google search result for that phrase is the Google Books page for this book). However, there is a ghost town called Bumble Bee, and this website (https://www.legendsofamerica.com/az-b...). titles its page about the town 'Bumble Bee Just Never Made It', so I can only assume he just glanced at the title of the page and didn't read it. It took me literally three seconds to fact-check that – and by 'fact-check' I just mean 'type it into Google'. But I guess the author and editor (assuming there was one) just didn't bother?
He also claims the following: "My book, Monster (John Blake Publishing, 2006) thoroughly details the life and crimes of Lee Wuornos. As stated earlier, this book formed the foundation of the movie by the same name, starring Charlize Theron." This movie came out in 2003. Now how would a movie released in 2003 be based on a book released three years later in 2006? In fact, the only claims that the movie was based on this book come from Berry-Dee's own book product pages, and it's blatantly obvious that he titled his book Monster to cash in on the movie's popularity, and not the other way around. Are authors allowed to just blatantly lie like this? Where was the editor? It's embarrassing to read.
Still, I did find this book useful for one thing: I noted his most egregious moments of smug self-congratulation in case I ever want to write something with a pompous, misogynist, unlikeable narrator.
May 28, 2018
This book was okay. However, the cover and the blurb are very misleading. The cover features a picture of Myra Hindley. Why? I have no idea because she does not feature in the book. The blurb on the back refers to Rosemary West. Why? I have no idea because she does not feature in the book. There are some interesting chapters within the book such as the one about 11 year old Mary Bell who killed 2 young boys in the late 60s. However, even the title is misleading. It is called Talking with Female Serial Killers. Most of the killers features are one off murderers rather than serial killers and the author is not talking, or corresponding with any of them. The whole book offers little detail about each killer and then a whole load of the author's personal (and often extreme) opinions about each of them.
The worst part of this book however is that it serves mostly as a forum to advertise the author. On every page (and I do not exaggerate, it is EVERY page) he refers to other books he has written, documentaries he has made or featured in. He refers constantly to letters received from various women on death row, but they are not featured within this book.
All in all - really disappointing.
The worst part of this book however is that it serves mostly as a forum to advertise the author. On every page (and I do not exaggerate, it is EVERY page) he refers to other books he has written, documentaries he has made or featured in. He refers constantly to letters received from various women on death row, but they are not featured within this book.
All in all - really disappointing.
September 11, 2018
The author comes across as a shitebag which undoubtedly he is.
June 2, 2018
Disappointing.
I was drawn in by the title/subject matter, but this book really is very poorly written. Huge over-use of exclamation marks, overly emotive language, reads like something written by an hysterical teenager or a Sun journalist. Typos also abound.
Berry-Dee uses much of it to pimp his other works, with the rest consisting of awkwardly prosaic lists of names and dates, and name/age/eye colour/hair colour descriptions of every individual.
Added to which....the majority of cases described are not those of serial killers, but rather a seemingly random selection of women who have killed once.
Bought in an airport as a holiday read, waste of money.
I was drawn in by the title/subject matter, but this book really is very poorly written. Huge over-use of exclamation marks, overly emotive language, reads like something written by an hysterical teenager or a Sun journalist. Typos also abound.
Berry-Dee uses much of it to pimp his other works, with the rest consisting of awkwardly prosaic lists of names and dates, and name/age/eye colour/hair colour descriptions of every individual.
Added to which....the majority of cases described are not those of serial killers, but rather a seemingly random selection of women who have killed once.
Bought in an airport as a holiday read, waste of money.
August 26, 2021
Unfortunately, I did not enjoy this book. I originally picked it up because I am very interested in criminology and because female serial killers are so rare that they aren't really talked about often. I do believe that the idea behind this book isn't necessarily bad; however, it just didn't work out for several reasons:
The cover and blurb:
One of the things that really drew me to this book was the cover. I just thought that the white on that dark red was absolutely gorgeous and I also really enjoyed the simplicity of it all. However, after reading the book in its entirety, I cannot help but complain about this: The woman on the cover is Myra Hindley, a British serial killer who, together with her partner Ian Brady, murdered five children. Perfect for this book, right? Except she isn't part of it. Well, that's untrue. She is mentioned in passing around six times throughout the book. And I do get why the author didn't want to include her. In his own words, he wanted to focus on female serial killers who weren't part of a murder duo where the male was likely the dominant one in the relationship (thus making it unlikely that the submissive would have killed on their own). However, why put her on the cover then? Why use her infamous photo to sell a book when you don't even deem her story important enough to dedicate a chapter or even just a single page to it? But Myra Hindley isn’t just the cover girl, she is also mentioned in the blurb, alongside other women such as Rosemary West – who is also only mentioned in passing (but this time at least a bit more often with what I counted as around ten instances throughout the book). But again: Why put them in the blurb if they don’t play any significance to your book? Those sentences mentioning them, which are really so few and far between, could have easily been left out without losing any relevant information to the story. The title itself bothers me, too. The book is called “Talking with Female Serial Killers”, yet most of the information given to us can be found on the killers’ Wikipedia pages or through a simple Google search. Berry-Dee did include some excerpts of his personal correspondence with several murderers; however, in my opinion, those short bits aren’t nearly interesting enough to warrant the purchase of an entire book. (Also, there is a grammatical or at least stylistic error in the middle of the blurb – how did no one catch that?!)
The blatant self-promo:
I’m not even kidding when I say that Berry-Dee references other books he has written or other projects he has worked on in the past no less than 17 (!) times! Yes, you read that correctly – se-ven-teen! This includes several mentions of the fact that Charlize Theron won an Oscar for her portrayal of serial killer Aileen Wuornos in a motion picture based on his book, Monster. Also, the foreword is basically just one big ego trip about how people simply couldn’t resist worshipping the floor he walked on during his visit to a Russian women’s prison.
The continued misogyny:
I think we are all very well-aware of the fact that many male writers seem to have trouble writing female characters. However, Berry-Dee takes this to a completly new level by apparently being unable to resist the urge to describe the physical appearance of EVERY SINGLE FEMALE HUMAN BEING mentioned in the book in a quite frankly disgusting manner. I do not understand how it is relevant to the story that a certain murderer used to have a “very shapely body” in the past but now is nothing more than “ugly and overweight”. Yeah, I know that most women in the book were or still are terrible people who did terrible things – but there is still no need to diminish their worth as a human being to how pleasing they are to the eye. Personally, I just don’t need to know the bust size of someone to determine whether their killing spree was morally questionable or not. All of this is in addition to repeatedly referring to all of womankind as “the fairer sex” as well as insisting that all women are naturally nurturing and motherly, discreetly suggesting that if you are not, there is something wrong with you.
An apparent lack of editing:
I swear that I didn’t go out of my way to find mistakes, and yet I managed to notice at least 45 typos/punctuation mistakes/wrong sentence structures etc. This includes jams such as “She because a nuisance to her teachers, disrupted classes and fellow pupils, […].”, “[…] who could reach out to them of they were distressed, […]”, “[…] but, before feeling the scene, […]” and even “[…] 7 May 2105, […]”. This – in addition to a lot of weird, incomprehensible jump cuts and just generally terrible stylistic choices – makes it seem as though not a single editor ever had a look at this book before it was published. Furthermore, Berry-Dee seems to have a hatred for commas, not using them nearly often enough – thus making it very hard to follow his train of thought during his many trademark multi-clause sentences. When he does use them, he more often than not places them incorrectly. The most infuriating abuse of proper punctuation, however, is his seemingly arbitrary comma use when it comes to the word aka. Sometimes he uses a comma after this word and sometimes he doesn’t, making it clear that his peculiar punctuation isn’t a deliberate stylistic choice but rather ignorance in regards to grammar rules. Also, Berry-Dee apparently doesn’t believe in semicolons.
A lack of serial killers:
At least 20 of the female murderers mentioned in the book weren’t serial killers at all as they had only killed once or twice – compared to the at least three murders including cool down periods in-between needed to be officially classified as a serial killer. And personally, that wouldn’t really be a problem, had Berry-Dee not repeatedly forced the correct definition down our throats. Why even pretend that the book is specifically about female serial killers then? Why not just write one about female murderers in general?
The author’s unprofessionalism:
Both the usage of the word “study” in the title as well as the author being referred to as a criminologist in the blurb had led me to believe that I was buying a book written from the perspective of a professional in the field. Of course, I wasn’t expecting to read a dissertation or anything like that; however, I did expect a well thought out retelling of the lives and crimes of different female serial killers. What I got instead was several sexist and racist remarks, a lot of cursing (not that I am against cursing, but it doesn’t seem fitting in a book that is supposedly a “chilling study”), many weird and unfitting exclamations sprinkled in every few pages (such as “No way, Jose!”) as well as a constant overuse of synonyms (Why say Texas when you can constantly refer to it as “The Lone Star State”, am I right?). Despite continually mentioning that research has shown that harsher sentences/death sentences do not work as a deterrent for murderers, Berry-Dee also repeatedly talks about executions of female murderers, all while being weirdly mean about it – it seemed as though he was almost gloating at the chance of seeing capital punishment being used on them. In general, he comes across as not objective at all.
These are just some of the things that bothered me about this book. However, in the interest of full transparency, there were some parts which were surprisingly quite well-written and extremely interesting (for example, I did truly enjoy the bit about poisons and how they were used in the past). That being said, I still wouldn’t recommend this book to anybody, and I unfortunately also do not think that I will ever give this author another try.
The cover and blurb:
One of the things that really drew me to this book was the cover. I just thought that the white on that dark red was absolutely gorgeous and I also really enjoyed the simplicity of it all. However, after reading the book in its entirety, I cannot help but complain about this: The woman on the cover is Myra Hindley, a British serial killer who, together with her partner Ian Brady, murdered five children. Perfect for this book, right? Except she isn't part of it. Well, that's untrue. She is mentioned in passing around six times throughout the book. And I do get why the author didn't want to include her. In his own words, he wanted to focus on female serial killers who weren't part of a murder duo where the male was likely the dominant one in the relationship (thus making it unlikely that the submissive would have killed on their own). However, why put her on the cover then? Why use her infamous photo to sell a book when you don't even deem her story important enough to dedicate a chapter or even just a single page to it? But Myra Hindley isn’t just the cover girl, she is also mentioned in the blurb, alongside other women such as Rosemary West – who is also only mentioned in passing (but this time at least a bit more often with what I counted as around ten instances throughout the book). But again: Why put them in the blurb if they don’t play any significance to your book? Those sentences mentioning them, which are really so few and far between, could have easily been left out without losing any relevant information to the story. The title itself bothers me, too. The book is called “Talking with Female Serial Killers”, yet most of the information given to us can be found on the killers’ Wikipedia pages or through a simple Google search. Berry-Dee did include some excerpts of his personal correspondence with several murderers; however, in my opinion, those short bits aren’t nearly interesting enough to warrant the purchase of an entire book. (Also, there is a grammatical or at least stylistic error in the middle of the blurb – how did no one catch that?!)
The blatant self-promo:
I’m not even kidding when I say that Berry-Dee references other books he has written or other projects he has worked on in the past no less than 17 (!) times! Yes, you read that correctly – se-ven-teen! This includes several mentions of the fact that Charlize Theron won an Oscar for her portrayal of serial killer Aileen Wuornos in a motion picture based on his book, Monster. Also, the foreword is basically just one big ego trip about how people simply couldn’t resist worshipping the floor he walked on during his visit to a Russian women’s prison.
The continued misogyny:
I think we are all very well-aware of the fact that many male writers seem to have trouble writing female characters. However, Berry-Dee takes this to a completly new level by apparently being unable to resist the urge to describe the physical appearance of EVERY SINGLE FEMALE HUMAN BEING mentioned in the book in a quite frankly disgusting manner. I do not understand how it is relevant to the story that a certain murderer used to have a “very shapely body” in the past but now is nothing more than “ugly and overweight”. Yeah, I know that most women in the book were or still are terrible people who did terrible things – but there is still no need to diminish their worth as a human being to how pleasing they are to the eye. Personally, I just don’t need to know the bust size of someone to determine whether their killing spree was morally questionable or not. All of this is in addition to repeatedly referring to all of womankind as “the fairer sex” as well as insisting that all women are naturally nurturing and motherly, discreetly suggesting that if you are not, there is something wrong with you.
An apparent lack of editing:
I swear that I didn’t go out of my way to find mistakes, and yet I managed to notice at least 45 typos/punctuation mistakes/wrong sentence structures etc. This includes jams such as “She because a nuisance to her teachers, disrupted classes and fellow pupils, […].”, “[…] who could reach out to them of they were distressed, […]”, “[…] but, before feeling the scene, […]” and even “[…] 7 May 2105, […]”. This – in addition to a lot of weird, incomprehensible jump cuts and just generally terrible stylistic choices – makes it seem as though not a single editor ever had a look at this book before it was published. Furthermore, Berry-Dee seems to have a hatred for commas, not using them nearly often enough – thus making it very hard to follow his train of thought during his many trademark multi-clause sentences. When he does use them, he more often than not places them incorrectly. The most infuriating abuse of proper punctuation, however, is his seemingly arbitrary comma use when it comes to the word aka. Sometimes he uses a comma after this word and sometimes he doesn’t, making it clear that his peculiar punctuation isn’t a deliberate stylistic choice but rather ignorance in regards to grammar rules. Also, Berry-Dee apparently doesn’t believe in semicolons.
A lack of serial killers:
At least 20 of the female murderers mentioned in the book weren’t serial killers at all as they had only killed once or twice – compared to the at least three murders including cool down periods in-between needed to be officially classified as a serial killer. And personally, that wouldn’t really be a problem, had Berry-Dee not repeatedly forced the correct definition down our throats. Why even pretend that the book is specifically about female serial killers then? Why not just write one about female murderers in general?
The author’s unprofessionalism:
Both the usage of the word “study” in the title as well as the author being referred to as a criminologist in the blurb had led me to believe that I was buying a book written from the perspective of a professional in the field. Of course, I wasn’t expecting to read a dissertation or anything like that; however, I did expect a well thought out retelling of the lives and crimes of different female serial killers. What I got instead was several sexist and racist remarks, a lot of cursing (not that I am against cursing, but it doesn’t seem fitting in a book that is supposedly a “chilling study”), many weird and unfitting exclamations sprinkled in every few pages (such as “No way, Jose!”) as well as a constant overuse of synonyms (Why say Texas when you can constantly refer to it as “The Lone Star State”, am I right?). Despite continually mentioning that research has shown that harsher sentences/death sentences do not work as a deterrent for murderers, Berry-Dee also repeatedly talks about executions of female murderers, all while being weirdly mean about it – it seemed as though he was almost gloating at the chance of seeing capital punishment being used on them. In general, he comes across as not objective at all.
These are just some of the things that bothered me about this book. However, in the interest of full transparency, there were some parts which were surprisingly quite well-written and extremely interesting (for example, I did truly enjoy the bit about poisons and how they were used in the past). That being said, I still wouldn’t recommend this book to anybody, and I unfortunately also do not think that I will ever give this author another try.
March 9, 2021
interesting read about female serial killers but didn't like the author style of writing
December 8, 2021
The concept of this book: great.
The execution: bloody awful.
I have three main problems with this book.
Firstly, the title is more than a little inaccurate given that Berry-Dee doesn't actually talk to most of the women discussed in the book. And quite a few of them aren't actually "serial" killers.
Secondly, 'Talking [about] Female (Serial) Killers' doesn't appear to have been thoroughly proofread or edited to any great degree. One more than slightly confusing instance came where the author writes that not enough evidence was found to take a case to trial in 1996; however, in the next paragraph it is written that, after a year or so of police work, the case eventually comes to trial in 1967. Instances such as this occur fairly frequently throughout the book.
Finally, and the reason I ultimately gave this book only one star, is that the misogyny throughout the book is pretty damn ridiculous, especially given the fact that, at the start of the book, Berry-Dee actually calls out the misogynistic way some men have written about women in the past.
Berry-Dee refers to the subject matters of his book with a range of charming descriptions including "overweight lump", "once attractive", "disgusting and fat" etc. etc. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting he be *nice* about murderers, but I'm not entirely sure why he's so caught up on their looks when there are a plethora of other aspects for which he could be criticising them (for example the murders they committed perhaps...).
It's not only the killers who receive this treatment, however. Female witnesses are "plump" or "graying" and the wives of jury members are "plain". Quite what a jury member's wife has to do with the murderers who are the supposed topic of this book I'm not too sure... but then again I'm also not sure not how Berry-Dee knows they were plain given that this particular trial happened in the '60s, but there we have it.
He also frequently implies that women who like sex are immoral and therefore more likely to be murderers...
In conclusion, you're probably just better off reading the Wikipedia articles for the women discussed in this book.
The execution: bloody awful.
I have three main problems with this book.
Firstly, the title is more than a little inaccurate given that Berry-Dee doesn't actually talk to most of the women discussed in the book. And quite a few of them aren't actually "serial" killers.
Secondly, 'Talking [about] Female (Serial) Killers' doesn't appear to have been thoroughly proofread or edited to any great degree. One more than slightly confusing instance came where the author writes that not enough evidence was found to take a case to trial in 1996; however, in the next paragraph it is written that, after a year or so of police work, the case eventually comes to trial in 1967. Instances such as this occur fairly frequently throughout the book.
Finally, and the reason I ultimately gave this book only one star, is that the misogyny throughout the book is pretty damn ridiculous, especially given the fact that, at the start of the book, Berry-Dee actually calls out the misogynistic way some men have written about women in the past.
Berry-Dee refers to the subject matters of his book with a range of charming descriptions including "overweight lump", "once attractive", "disgusting and fat" etc. etc. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting he be *nice* about murderers, but I'm not entirely sure why he's so caught up on their looks when there are a plethora of other aspects for which he could be criticising them (for example the murders they committed perhaps...).
It's not only the killers who receive this treatment, however. Female witnesses are "plump" or "graying" and the wives of jury members are "plain". Quite what a jury member's wife has to do with the murderers who are the supposed topic of this book I'm not too sure... but then again I'm also not sure not how Berry-Dee knows they were plain given that this particular trial happened in the '60s, but there we have it.
He also frequently implies that women who like sex are immoral and therefore more likely to be murderers...
In conclusion, you're probably just better off reading the Wikipedia articles for the women discussed in this book.
November 8, 2020
This was probably the worst Christopher Berry Dee book I've read so far.
Like his other books, its littered with mentions of his previous books. But in this book he takes it a step further and proceeds to tell us where, when and by who the books have been published by.
Like, I don't care. If I'm interested I'll go to the front of the book where most authors list their previous books or are Google your other books. I don't need reminding every five seconds.
This book like his others also has plenty of grammar and spelling mistakes. I'm sure no one reads these before they are published.
He is very repetitive in his writing too. He mentioned the crimes being akin to Stephen king books three times throughout the book
Christopher likes to comment on the killers appearance too, something which isn't relevant and I'm sure he wouldn't do when talking about Male serial killers.
Oh yes, a book titled 'talking with female serial killers' which includes plenty of women who aren't serial killers.
Oh and don't get swayed by the image of Mira Hindley on the front cover, apart from a brief mention here and there, her and Rose West get no in depth discussion.
A large portion of this book is just stating facts about female killers rather than any actual in depth discussion about them.
One of the worst true crime books I've ever read.
Like his other books, its littered with mentions of his previous books. But in this book he takes it a step further and proceeds to tell us where, when and by who the books have been published by.
Like, I don't care. If I'm interested I'll go to the front of the book where most authors list their previous books or are Google your other books. I don't need reminding every five seconds.
This book like his others also has plenty of grammar and spelling mistakes. I'm sure no one reads these before they are published.
He is very repetitive in his writing too. He mentioned the crimes being akin to Stephen king books three times throughout the book
Christopher likes to comment on the killers appearance too, something which isn't relevant and I'm sure he wouldn't do when talking about Male serial killers.
Oh yes, a book titled 'talking with female serial killers' which includes plenty of women who aren't serial killers.
Oh and don't get swayed by the image of Mira Hindley on the front cover, apart from a brief mention here and there, her and Rose West get no in depth discussion.
A large portion of this book is just stating facts about female killers rather than any actual in depth discussion about them.
One of the worst true crime books I've ever read.
September 6, 2018
I would have liked to rate this book 5 stars, as this is a subject I enjoy thoroughly. However, a few things about the author really irritated me:
He seems to think self promoting his other works every other chapter or so is acceptable. While I’m sure this is a great achievement I don’t need to read for the umpteenth time how your book “Monster” was then adapted into a feature film starring Charlize Theron, name drop included each and every time.
I’m also uncomfortable with the the approach he took in regards to sexual preferences and professions. For example: just because the woman was a lesbian that does not mean her lover was a mud wrestler or that being a “cheap hooker” doesn’t make you less of a person, being a murderer definitely does, though.
I tired quickly of how often he thought these murderesses were making sexual advances to him.
We get it, on a whole you fancy yourself rotten.
As I said , it’s a pity as I did enjoy the actual stories of these women (also, be warned: it’s mostly one time killers—- considering how often he defined “serial killers” I found that to be a bit of a let down).
In short, this would have been an excellent book had it, very simply, not been written by a man.
He seems to think self promoting his other works every other chapter or so is acceptable. While I’m sure this is a great achievement I don’t need to read for the umpteenth time how your book “Monster” was then adapted into a feature film starring Charlize Theron, name drop included each and every time.
I’m also uncomfortable with the the approach he took in regards to sexual preferences and professions. For example: just because the woman was a lesbian that does not mean her lover was a mud wrestler or that being a “cheap hooker” doesn’t make you less of a person, being a murderer definitely does, though.
I tired quickly of how often he thought these murderesses were making sexual advances to him.
We get it, on a whole you fancy yourself rotten.
As I said , it’s a pity as I did enjoy the actual stories of these women (also, be warned: it’s mostly one time killers—- considering how often he defined “serial killers” I found that to be a bit of a let down).
In short, this would have been an excellent book had it, very simply, not been written by a man.
January 15, 2022
This is going to be a very long review, if you don't want to read it all, the summary of my thoughts are; An appalling look at women who kill, a very misleading title with an egotistical and misogynistic author. Do not read.
Most of my reviews are relatively short and sweet, this book calls for a slightly different format. As there are many things in this book I want to talk about each subject will get its own section. Any quotations I use are highlighted in italics with a page number listed
The first thing I want to address is the misleading title and cover. 'Talking with female serial killers' The first issue is that most of the cases in this book have never had any correspondence with the author. There are 36 cases mentioned, of the 36 only 23 are discussed in more detail - of those 23 cases only 6 are classified as serial killers.
The cover itself has a portrait of Myra Hindley, who doesn't feature in this book, except very briefly in the other case studies. This is a tacky marketing ploy in order to increase sales through the notoriety of Myra Hindley and Ian Brady's crimes. The use of Myra Hindley is used in the blurb as well Here too are women who kill under the influence of their male partners, such as Myra Hindley and Rosemary West I feel it is also important to note that Rose West is also only mentioned briefly. Once again using the notoriety of another female serial killer to mislead the reader.
Moving on to the foreword and introductory chapters. The foreword seems to hold very little relevance to the content of the book, discussing his time visiting a women's prison in Russia and his thoughts on the prison; many of which are discussing how inmates in UK prisons shouldn't have the right to complain compared to the conditions of those in Sablino Prison, Russia. This strikes me as a strange point to take away, if you saw people living in extremely poor conditions, while under the care of the state, that would bring you to consider how much human rights mean when they deem it acceptable to retract them as punishment. Instead of questioning how the prison systems treat inmates, he came to the conclusion that those in a UK prison should have no right to complain - even though the UK prison system is also uniquely flawed.
Moving onto the introduction I find that it holds no real weight and if you were so inclined to read this book, could happily skip it and would most likely retain more sanity than if you forced yourself through 21 pages of misogyny and drivel. His opinion of women is already emerging on page 2 where we find the quote At one time he got himself quite worked up - probably over divorce proceedings or some other female sleight. While the wording of this does have negative connotations regarding women and hints to the fact he believes divorce is women's fault it is not the worst sentence, it is probably one of the tamer ones. By page 9 he so aptly reveals that I find most women can be difficult to understand as if that wasn't already glaringly obvious.
Moving away from a chapter by chapter playthrough the above quote brings me nicely into my next point: The backwards and twisted views he has of women. On page 13 he states It would be fair to say that females ought to be instinctively nurturing and maternal. Most reasonable people simply cannot imagine why a woman, being the mother figure, could harbour such evil desires I would suggest that said author changes his perspective and update it to the 21st century. Not all women are maternal, not all women have or want children. A woman is not maternal purely because of her gender; women are more than mothers. To believe a woman should be nurturing a mother figure is to discount a woman as a human, the role of a woman is to be whoever she wants to, her role is not given to her from birth purely because of your backwards ideals. A woman who is a mother is not just a mother, she is so much more than the children she's had. A woman is more than the labels she is assigned. Furthermore, he refers to women as the 'fairer sex' quite often, which is not only an outdated and old-fashioned turn of phrase, it also has connotations of innocence and naivety, which I would argue is out of place when talking about taking another human's life. There is a segment of this book, that I can only imagine was included to boost his own ego and sense of importance, that discusses how many of the women he has interviewed wanted to engage in a sexual relationship with him - how much of this is true, I cannot say, I do imagine a lot of it may be fabricated due to the fact that it is stated Rose West wanted to marry me, with my response being unprintable in this book on my publisher's lawyer's legal advice, for it would certainly upset any lady with an undisturbed delicate highbrow disposition. (Page 19) I would argue that anyone reading a book about murder his response would not cause 'upset' to anyone, I also do not understand how a simple no or in fact no response to such a comment at all could warrant legal advice, does the author truly have so little respect and sense in decorum that what he said was unprintable?
Another common theme present throughout the book is his need to comment on the appearance of the women, more specifically how attractive he finds them. We are introduced to serial killer Cathy May Wood and he describes her as This overweight lump of disgusting humanity (Page 29) If the part of her you find easiest to hate is her appearance and her weight then you need to reevaluate what you find so offensive about her looks instead of the crimes she committed. Pick issue with her actions, her manipulation and murder, not with how she looks or the number on the scale. This isn't the only time he describes a killer with their looks, not their actions. It is also seen on page 228 with killer Virginia Susan Caudill where he states her date of birth and then the ugly and overweight Virginia Caudill Where once again he feels that the most important thing to let you know is that she is overweight and that he doesn't find her attractive. Throughout the book, there are many more instances where he deems it necessary to comment on how attractive he finds a woman. Attraction is subjective and differs with every person, his opinion of their looks holds no weight, not that any of the words he writes hold any real importance as they are mostly metaphors strung together with some opinions and connectives.
While discussing his writing style and choice of words I cannot ignore the way he described one of the victims in his book, Louis 'Buddy' Musso. Buddy had an intellectual disability, or developmental disability depending on the preferred term. Instead of using the correct terminology, the author decided it was appropriate to use mentally retarded (Page 102) Not only is this incredibly offensive and a term that hasn't been used for many years now it is shocking that his editor and publisher didn't find any issue with this term; the book was first published in 2018, so he has no excuses of not having access to more compassionate and accurate terminology and language.
When discussing his language towards disability I'd like to bring up the quote Dennehy who, before she started snuffing out lives, had been sectioned under the Mental Health Act - twice! (Page 11) The use of the exclamation mark and the need to state how many times with such shock indicates that he believes the act of being sectioned makes a person inherently dangerous. There are many people who suffer very severely with their mental health and require hospitalisation to help them cope and regain control of their lives. If the fact she was sectioned twice is shocking to him, it only highlights his ignorance, many people who are sectioned are sectioned multiple times over the course of their life, mental illness can be completely debilitating, it doesn't make someone dangerous or evil, just ill and struggling. In this instance the fact she was sectioned and still went on to kill I would argue shows how the mental health services failed her and she received inadequate care resulting in her mental health completely taking over. Her mental health does not diminish the pain she caused but it is an explanation as to why those lives were lost.
The final thing I want to highlight in this review is the awful editing, throughout the book, there are examples of poor proofreading, spelling errors and sentences that make no sense. While a few punctuation errors are forgivable and expected, no one is perfect, I don't expect to find sentences that make no sense, words that have been repeated, punctuation that is in the wrong place and formatting that wasn't maintained. The format of the chapters seemed to be that the heading was the name of the killer and each section had a paragraph depicting their method of killing, a small section about their method and the victims. This structure was randomly abandoned in later chapters and would then be used again a few chapters later. The inconsistency of this format makes it appear that he knew most of the killers in the book were not serial killers and didn't want to highlight that by stating their number of victims, making it glaringly obvious to anyone that the title is misleading.
Overall this book is a poor excuse for a study of serial killers. It is full of errors, inconsistency, misogyny, bragging and ego. It is not worth your time and it doesn't do the women talked about justice, and it certainly doesn't do the victims any justice. The women are defined by their looks, their careers and not their character or actions. The victims are mentioned in passing and usually not in an intelligent and compassionate way. I am disgusted by this author, twisting his opinions into fact. Don't bother reading, you'll come away from it with fewer brain cells and a lot of regrets.
Most of my reviews are relatively short and sweet, this book calls for a slightly different format. As there are many things in this book I want to talk about each subject will get its own section. Any quotations I use are highlighted in italics with a page number listed
The first thing I want to address is the misleading title and cover. 'Talking with female serial killers' The first issue is that most of the cases in this book have never had any correspondence with the author. There are 36 cases mentioned, of the 36 only 23 are discussed in more detail - of those 23 cases only 6 are classified as serial killers.
The cover itself has a portrait of Myra Hindley, who doesn't feature in this book, except very briefly in the other case studies. This is a tacky marketing ploy in order to increase sales through the notoriety of Myra Hindley and Ian Brady's crimes. The use of Myra Hindley is used in the blurb as well Here too are women who kill under the influence of their male partners, such as Myra Hindley and Rosemary West I feel it is also important to note that Rose West is also only mentioned briefly. Once again using the notoriety of another female serial killer to mislead the reader.
Moving on to the foreword and introductory chapters. The foreword seems to hold very little relevance to the content of the book, discussing his time visiting a women's prison in Russia and his thoughts on the prison; many of which are discussing how inmates in UK prisons shouldn't have the right to complain compared to the conditions of those in Sablino Prison, Russia. This strikes me as a strange point to take away, if you saw people living in extremely poor conditions, while under the care of the state, that would bring you to consider how much human rights mean when they deem it acceptable to retract them as punishment. Instead of questioning how the prison systems treat inmates, he came to the conclusion that those in a UK prison should have no right to complain - even though the UK prison system is also uniquely flawed.
Moving onto the introduction I find that it holds no real weight and if you were so inclined to read this book, could happily skip it and would most likely retain more sanity than if you forced yourself through 21 pages of misogyny and drivel. His opinion of women is already emerging on page 2 where we find the quote At one time he got himself quite worked up - probably over divorce proceedings or some other female sleight. While the wording of this does have negative connotations regarding women and hints to the fact he believes divorce is women's fault it is not the worst sentence, it is probably one of the tamer ones. By page 9 he so aptly reveals that I find most women can be difficult to understand as if that wasn't already glaringly obvious.
Moving away from a chapter by chapter playthrough the above quote brings me nicely into my next point: The backwards and twisted views he has of women. On page 13 he states It would be fair to say that females ought to be instinctively nurturing and maternal. Most reasonable people simply cannot imagine why a woman, being the mother figure, could harbour such evil desires I would suggest that said author changes his perspective and update it to the 21st century. Not all women are maternal, not all women have or want children. A woman is not maternal purely because of her gender; women are more than mothers. To believe a woman should be nurturing a mother figure is to discount a woman as a human, the role of a woman is to be whoever she wants to, her role is not given to her from birth purely because of your backwards ideals. A woman who is a mother is not just a mother, she is so much more than the children she's had. A woman is more than the labels she is assigned. Furthermore, he refers to women as the 'fairer sex' quite often, which is not only an outdated and old-fashioned turn of phrase, it also has connotations of innocence and naivety, which I would argue is out of place when talking about taking another human's life. There is a segment of this book, that I can only imagine was included to boost his own ego and sense of importance, that discusses how many of the women he has interviewed wanted to engage in a sexual relationship with him - how much of this is true, I cannot say, I do imagine a lot of it may be fabricated due to the fact that it is stated Rose West wanted to marry me, with my response being unprintable in this book on my publisher's lawyer's legal advice, for it would certainly upset any lady with an undisturbed delicate highbrow disposition. (Page 19) I would argue that anyone reading a book about murder his response would not cause 'upset' to anyone, I also do not understand how a simple no or in fact no response to such a comment at all could warrant legal advice, does the author truly have so little respect and sense in decorum that what he said was unprintable?
Another common theme present throughout the book is his need to comment on the appearance of the women, more specifically how attractive he finds them. We are introduced to serial killer Cathy May Wood and he describes her as This overweight lump of disgusting humanity (Page 29) If the part of her you find easiest to hate is her appearance and her weight then you need to reevaluate what you find so offensive about her looks instead of the crimes she committed. Pick issue with her actions, her manipulation and murder, not with how she looks or the number on the scale. This isn't the only time he describes a killer with their looks, not their actions. It is also seen on page 228 with killer Virginia Susan Caudill where he states her date of birth and then the ugly and overweight Virginia Caudill Where once again he feels that the most important thing to let you know is that she is overweight and that he doesn't find her attractive. Throughout the book, there are many more instances where he deems it necessary to comment on how attractive he finds a woman. Attraction is subjective and differs with every person, his opinion of their looks holds no weight, not that any of the words he writes hold any real importance as they are mostly metaphors strung together with some opinions and connectives.
While discussing his writing style and choice of words I cannot ignore the way he described one of the victims in his book, Louis 'Buddy' Musso. Buddy had an intellectual disability, or developmental disability depending on the preferred term. Instead of using the correct terminology, the author decided it was appropriate to use mentally retarded (Page 102) Not only is this incredibly offensive and a term that hasn't been used for many years now it is shocking that his editor and publisher didn't find any issue with this term; the book was first published in 2018, so he has no excuses of not having access to more compassionate and accurate terminology and language.
When discussing his language towards disability I'd like to bring up the quote Dennehy who, before she started snuffing out lives, had been sectioned under the Mental Health Act - twice! (Page 11) The use of the exclamation mark and the need to state how many times with such shock indicates that he believes the act of being sectioned makes a person inherently dangerous. There are many people who suffer very severely with their mental health and require hospitalisation to help them cope and regain control of their lives. If the fact she was sectioned twice is shocking to him, it only highlights his ignorance, many people who are sectioned are sectioned multiple times over the course of their life, mental illness can be completely debilitating, it doesn't make someone dangerous or evil, just ill and struggling. In this instance the fact she was sectioned and still went on to kill I would argue shows how the mental health services failed her and she received inadequate care resulting in her mental health completely taking over. Her mental health does not diminish the pain she caused but it is an explanation as to why those lives were lost.
The final thing I want to highlight in this review is the awful editing, throughout the book, there are examples of poor proofreading, spelling errors and sentences that make no sense. While a few punctuation errors are forgivable and expected, no one is perfect, I don't expect to find sentences that make no sense, words that have been repeated, punctuation that is in the wrong place and formatting that wasn't maintained. The format of the chapters seemed to be that the heading was the name of the killer and each section had a paragraph depicting their method of killing, a small section about their method and the victims. This structure was randomly abandoned in later chapters and would then be used again a few chapters later. The inconsistency of this format makes it appear that he knew most of the killers in the book were not serial killers and didn't want to highlight that by stating their number of victims, making it glaringly obvious to anyone that the title is misleading.
Overall this book is a poor excuse for a study of serial killers. It is full of errors, inconsistency, misogyny, bragging and ego. It is not worth your time and it doesn't do the women talked about justice, and it certainly doesn't do the victims any justice. The women are defined by their looks, their careers and not their character or actions. The victims are mentioned in passing and usually not in an intelligent and compassionate way. I am disgusted by this author, twisting his opinions into fact. Don't bother reading, you'll come away from it with fewer brain cells and a lot of regrets.
June 20, 2018
This book had so much potential because the author obviously knows his stuff and has a lengthy background in the field. However, it was ruined by his constant interference in the text with macabre and seriously unfunny asides. Some chapters were interesting while others were too short to really get anything from. I also felt very uncomfortable reading the concluding chapter with the inference that women are apt to fly off the handle and kill for no real reason. I expected a lot more from this book and was very disappointed.
July 31, 2018
I don't normally review - this book should come with a warning - prepare for extreme cliches and hyperbole. It's not the constant plugging of other books so much, it's the very black and white approach to all the women written out (many of whom are murderers but not serial killers). Also the terrible editing. If I were the author - I would demand a refund from their editor. Badly written paragraphs, words missing, sentences in the wrong place. Avoid - there have to be better, more insightful books than this out there.
June 12, 2022
I want to burn this book or rip every page. You’d expect more of someone calling himself an experienced criminologist and not just his random misogynistic, sexist, stereotypical crap commentary. No scientific proof whatsoever. He’s clearly all over himself.
February 29, 2024
How to sell a book claiming you've talked to 'female serial killers', according to Christopher Berry-Dee:
1 - Put Myra Hindley on the cover
2 - Don't ever talk to or about Myra Hindley
1 - Put Myra Hindley on the cover
2 - Don't ever talk to or about Myra Hindley
July 11, 2018
I hate to say it, but I didn't enjoy this book. I don't like giving negative reviews and it's purely because I don't want to put the author down, but I just can't say I enjoyed reading this.
First of all I feel like it hasn't been properly proof read before publishing, as there are some spelling errors/typos (actually loads) and sometimes the complete wrong word is used for example "she because a nuisance to her teachers" .
Alot of the phrases are repeated throughout which just makes me roll my eyes and sometimes it feels like a children's book in the way the author will address the reader. I do like when authors address the reader but you have to keep within the tone of the book I think.
Then there's the problem I have with the title "talking with female serial killers" because alot of the killers in the book aren't even serial killers, and there is little to no interaction with them, the quotes are peppered lightly throughout the pages and could have been taken from ANY article written about each woman. I expected to be reading interviews or something.
I found some of the passages to be quite sexist in refering to women as the "fairer" sex and there are a few sentences pointing towards the opinion that women are more likely than men to over react and murder for no apparent reason.
I just had so many problems with it, like it has Myra Hindley on the front cover and she isn't even featured in the book. The only part I could get any enjoyment out of was the part concerntrating on Mary Bell, and that's because I find her facinating.
First of all I feel like it hasn't been properly proof read before publishing, as there are some spelling errors/typos (actually loads) and sometimes the complete wrong word is used for example "she because a nuisance to her teachers" .
Alot of the phrases are repeated throughout which just makes me roll my eyes and sometimes it feels like a children's book in the way the author will address the reader. I do like when authors address the reader but you have to keep within the tone of the book I think.
Then there's the problem I have with the title "talking with female serial killers" because alot of the killers in the book aren't even serial killers, and there is little to no interaction with them, the quotes are peppered lightly throughout the pages and could have been taken from ANY article written about each woman. I expected to be reading interviews or something.
I found some of the passages to be quite sexist in refering to women as the "fairer" sex and there are a few sentences pointing towards the opinion that women are more likely than men to over react and murder for no apparent reason.
I just had so many problems with it, like it has Myra Hindley on the front cover and she isn't even featured in the book. The only part I could get any enjoyment out of was the part concerntrating on Mary Bell, and that's because I find her facinating.
December 15, 2019
Misognistic drivel. I hate not finishing books, even if they're not great, but I was glad not to finish this one.
March 21, 2021
Dużo lepsza niż "Rozmowy z psychopatami" z tej samej serii.
January 2, 2021
This book was awful. Badly written, over dramatic, overly sexual, full of typos, patronising & misogynistic. The cover & blurb are extremely misleading, mentioning Myra Hindley and Rose West who only feature in the book in passing comments, there are no chapters dedicated to them. Instead, most chapters are dedicated to one-off murderers, not serial killers. There are a couple of interesting cases, one being Mary Bell, but the awful writing is so distracting that it was hard to get through them. The whole book is a promotion for the author's other ventures and he spends most the time stroking his own ego and talking about how everyone loves him. There's no actual science or fact behind the psychology discussed, it's all the author's own opinion. If you want a book where a qualified author interviews actual serial killers and goes into their psychology using actual science then I suggest Mindhunter by John Douglas & Mark Olshaker, and not this shit show.
October 24, 2018
This wasn´t what I expected and, to be honest, it was a bit of a disappointment. It reminded me of those free annual-sized books they used to do for a pound (and maybe still do) with titles like "The Most Evil People In History" or "True Crime".
Weirdly, unevenly - yes, badly - written, this is a bitty, unorganised wander through some interestingly grim territory but instead of following some kind of map or well-informed guide, we get a messy, incoherant, self-opinionated rant.
Three stars for the interesting nuggets among the dung.
Weirdly, unevenly - yes, badly - written, this is a bitty, unorganised wander through some interestingly grim territory but instead of following some kind of map or well-informed guide, we get a messy, incoherant, self-opinionated rant.
Three stars for the interesting nuggets among the dung.
July 18, 2018
If you can make it through the first chapter okay, then continue on. Otherwise, abandon the book as it is a giant waste of time. It is rife with factual errors (such as the wrong year or state), filled with conjecture based in the author’s own reality, and despite the premise being female serial killers, the author chooses to focus on whatever women seemingly tickled his fancy. How this man has repeatedly been published I do not understand.
December 28, 2018
Sadly, this book is poorly written, poorly edited and very patronising to the reader. It’s so painfully melodramatic and all over the place that I couldn’t get past the first few chapters. I would usually feel resistant to write a bad review but Mr Berry-Dee obviously has such an inflated opinion of himself as an expert ‘criminologist’ and sex symbol that I highly doubt this would even scratch the surface.
November 3, 2018
Berry-Dee is a criminal psychologist with decades of experience dealing with serial killers and psychopaths. In this book he focuses on the most twisted and depraved female killers, mostly American and British. This is for anybody who thinks that women are all flowers and puppies.
January 12, 2024
First of all, I need to start by saying I did not finish the book. I could not ignore the way the author can't help but sell all of his other books by mentioning them every so few pages and inserting how amazing other people think his work is, it just got on my nerves. He would be better off writing an autobiography to praise himself instead of using other topics as a pathway to do this and mislead people like that.
Outside of that, I feel like the title is quite misleading. It's not talking to female serial killers as much as it is reviewing their cases and inserting his opinion on them, in some cases even unnecessarily adding commentary on their appearances where it does not matter (calling someone 'fat and disgusting' or commenting on people's weight).
I also want to mention that the writer calls himself a criminologist, but I for the love of me can't find where he got his degree and if he even has one, you just get thrown into his career path and the books he's written as soon as you try to find more information.
There are other reviews that go further into the reason this book just is not worth your time, but these are the most prevalent to me at the moment.
Outside of that, I feel like the title is quite misleading. It's not talking to female serial killers as much as it is reviewing their cases and inserting his opinion on them, in some cases even unnecessarily adding commentary on their appearances where it does not matter (calling someone 'fat and disgusting' or commenting on people's weight).
I also want to mention that the writer calls himself a criminologist, but I for the love of me can't find where he got his degree and if he even has one, you just get thrown into his career path and the books he's written as soon as you try to find more information.
There are other reviews that go further into the reason this book just is not worth your time, but these are the most prevalent to me at the moment.
May 20, 2025
Mr. Christopher Berry-Dee claims to be a criminologist, yet doesn't seem to know the definition of a serial killer. In this book, he mentions quite a lot of one-off killers or murderers who took the lives of two people. Don't give future readers the impression they'll only read about serial killers then.
The book is titled 'Talking with female serial killers', although he should have named it 'Talking about female killers'. He kept claiming that he regularly corresponded with some of the women he mentioned in his book, but the contents or transcripts of that correspondence was very limited, to non-existing. Maybe it was a wrong assumption of mine to expect it in the first place.
The number of typos and incorrect or incomplete sentence constructions disturbed my reading experience quite heavily. Quite a few sentences lacked a crucial verb, and basic words were spelled incorrectly.
Now and then, he mentions the location of the cemeteries where the victims are buried. Adding that information adds nothing of value to the chapters, and is in my opinion quite disrespectful towards the victims and their families. Cemeteries are a resting place, not a tourist attraction.
Don't get me started on how much this man can't resist the urge to boost his own ego by mentioning the other books he wrote or the tv shows he made. Yes, Christopher, I know after the second mention that you have numerous bestselling books. No need to keep repeating them.
From someone who promotes himself as a renowed criminologist and expert on murderers and serial killers, I expected a book worth reading. Not a book where the author constantly boosts his own ego.
The book is titled 'Talking with female serial killers', although he should have named it 'Talking about female killers'. He kept claiming that he regularly corresponded with some of the women he mentioned in his book, but the contents or transcripts of that correspondence was very limited, to non-existing. Maybe it was a wrong assumption of mine to expect it in the first place.
The number of typos and incorrect or incomplete sentence constructions disturbed my reading experience quite heavily. Quite a few sentences lacked a crucial verb, and basic words were spelled incorrectly.
Now and then, he mentions the location of the cemeteries where the victims are buried. Adding that information adds nothing of value to the chapters, and is in my opinion quite disrespectful towards the victims and their families. Cemeteries are a resting place, not a tourist attraction.
Don't get me started on how much this man can't resist the urge to boost his own ego by mentioning the other books he wrote or the tv shows he made. Yes, Christopher, I know after the second mention that you have numerous bestselling books. No need to keep repeating them.
From someone who promotes himself as a renowed criminologist and expert on murderers and serial killers, I expected a book worth reading. Not a book where the author constantly boosts his own ego.
July 28, 2022
This was my first true crime book and I did find out that I like reading about true crime. So why did I give it 3 stars? Stephen King and Alfred Hitchcock were mentioned WAY to many times. Also, the amount of typos and grammatical errors in this book are also a crime. I am not sure if I will pick up other books by this author, but it did kickstart something.
June 27, 2023
2gwiazdki tylko za opisanie ciekawych spraw. Z tytułem autor się rozminął kompletnie bo rozmów to w tej książce nie znajdziemy. Dodatkowo poruszone sprawy morderczyń ale nie seryjnych, a nawet morderców. Pisarz ma tendencję do natrętnego powtarzania swoich głupich powiedzonek oraz zaznaczania co jakiś czas, że jest specjalistą w swojej dziedzinie mimo iż słownictwa używa bardziej zbliżonego do nastoletniego fana kryminałów niż do fachowca w swojej dziedzinie.
April 19, 2021
Bardzo dobrze i dokładnie napisany reportaż ja temat seryjnych morderczyń. Zdecydowanie sprawdzi się u fanów kryminalnych zagadek
November 30, 2025
not that informative and also described every woman in connection w how attractive she was? what was the purpose of this 🧍
Displaying 1 - 30 of 299 reviews