Serial Killer: 100 of the World's Deadliest Murderers

by Ben Biggs

Explore the means, motives, and opportunities of more than 100 notorious serial killers, revealing what (if anything) drove them to their crimes.
 
In recent years, the popularity of true-crime series, books, and podcasts has exploded, with audiences riveted by the horrifying details of these killings and the chilling methodologies of their perpetrators. Serial Killer looks at means, motive, and opportunity for each of these deadly monsters. The profiles what made the murderers this way? Were they born to kill? What possibly went through their minds? How were they caught, and how did they pay for their crimes? And most importantly, what can we learn from this to prevent future atrocities? All the serial killers are arranged by nationality, and include John Wayne Gacy, David Berkowitz (Son of Sam), Jeffrey Dahmer, and Aileen Wuornos from the US; Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, the “Moors Murderers,” who abducted and tortured children in northwestern England; José Vincente Matias, a Brazilian serial killer who cannibalized his victims; Russell Williams of Canada, who committed multiple murders and sexual assaults; and predators from Australia, China, Columbia, the Czech Republic, France, Greece, India, South Korea, and beyond.

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction

192 pages, Hardcover

Published March 3, 2020

Reviews

[Ellie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5 stars

Brief but very useful overviews of different murderers from around the world. I would’ve liked more detail about why each killer did what they did, but I also think the book works well as a broader look at these people without being too bogged down. Definitely for beginners to the true crime genre like me :)

Also made me realise just how much Criminal Minds borrows from real life like wow I could connect an episode to almost all of these people.

[Abigail Sullivan · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 ⭐️ rounded up. Great, short amounts of information on many killers.

[Sharmin Loraine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has some really short stories of 100 serial killers all over the world. Some I’ve not ever heard of… so, if they’re interesting enough from a snippet, I look them up. I love these types of books because they give me more reading to do. 🥳. There are also times I just don’t have the attention span for a long story.

[Rachel Noorman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brisk read. Sometimes, I wish there had been more detail. I liked that it had more than just American serial killers, and I learned about some that I had never heard of before.

[Karine Lelièvre · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love the short stories and presentation of each killer, but some details are missing...it's often too short...the structure of the presentation, however, is very appealing and satisfying

[Sidney Hildebrandt · Rating 5 out of 5]

What sets this book apart is that it goes more into each serial killer's m.o. which is something that many books like this skip over. So many books and tv shows on this subject shoot straight to the gore and horror and barely touch base on (if it all) the killers reasoning and method. This book had it all.