Step into My Parlor: The Chilling Story of Serial Killer Jeffrey Dahmer

by Edward Baumann

Attempts to sort out the factors contributing to mass-murderer Jeffrey Dahmer's thirteen-year killing spree, and reveals the grisly techniques he employed to torture and kill his many victims

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction, Crime, Biography

305 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1991

Reviews

[Nathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

What can I say? I like reading about serial killers.

[Jessica · Rating 1 out of 5]

The writing in this book was terrible. The sentences were choppy and at times didn't make sense.

[Brooklyn Attic Books]

I knew the details of this case before I began reading it. While the book doesn't get all the facts like his discharge from the military, and sometimes it does jump around in time a bit too much for me, it was a fairly insightful book. When I read true crime I end up picturing things a bit too clear in my head and I got fairly queasy in some of the descriptions.

What I appreciated about the book were the victim profiles and talking about each one in better detail. I didn't realize that there was such an uproar in the community towards the police handling of one of the victims. I remember a mentioning of it, but I didn't realize that it set off city-wide protesting.

There's a chapter talking about serial killer profiling and labeling a person "insane". I'm not sure I can agree with any of what the author actually states here. For every serial killer with a traumatic childhood you can point out 100 more people with similar experiences that didn't turn out to be killers. Just saying. During the author's spiel about insanity, he states that just because a person performs necrophilia and has cannibalistic tendencies, does not mean he is insane...... I think you have to be. Sorry but the comparison he makes about people who enjoy BDSM and Dahmer's actions being a similar fetish is not a good one. There's a line between what is insane behavior (necrophelia/cannibalism) and what an accepted fetish is (getting pooped on/tied up/etc). You cannot clump the two together. I know the BIGGEST argument here is defining insanity, and then defining what are the "norms". I'm not getting into this. If harm befalls another person for a sexual act to be enjoyed by someone else, that's in the No-No zone, we all know this. He basically raped corpses that he created. I didn't appreciate the author's weird ambiguity around the fact that Jeffrey Dahmer was insane and evil for what he did. He was 100% a sociopathetic murderer.

[Tierney Coons · Rating 3 out of 5]

Have you ever wanted to take a plunge deep into the mind of one of the most notorious serial killers, Jeffrey Dahmer? If so this chilling book is something you just might need to consider reading. It goes over all of the evil doings that took place behind the door to apartment 213, from the first victim to the last. The details go on in to tell how it all unraveled. Step into My Parlor: The Chilling Story of Serial Killer Jeffrey Dahmer however is not for the faint of heart. This covers the horrific and grisly details and evidence of the case. Explaining exactly what happened from the moment Dahmer's house guests stepped over the threshold of his apartment door to their last moments.

[Fishface · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was quite a good read, taking us from the dismemberment murders elsewhere in Wisconsin that were knocked off the front pages by the Dahmer case, to the point of Dahmer's defense team waiving his right to a preliminary hearing. Appendices let us see some of the contents of the legal paperwork as well. This one told me even more about the victims than The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer, and that's saying something. The writing was sometimes clumsy, and occasionally the author misapplied his wisecracking, but these are just quibbles. This one is well worth your time.

[Bunny · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book makes me really freaking cranky. I would like to give it less stars, but it was at least informative enough not to be a waste of my precious time.

Why. Why why why do authors insist on writing books with no ending? If Dahmer had not yet gone to trial, why would you publish this book? Wait until the fucker has been tried, and then publish the book. Ending it on affidavits is fucking STUPID. I am annoyed.

Also, I did not in any way care for this author. I like reading facts, not "cute" little comments interjected into the paragraphs. I don't know what the author wrote/writes other than true crime novels, but perhaps he should stick to that line of work and leave the crime novels to the real authors.

[The Badger · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a mental health counselor I have to say that Dahmer's parents had a chance to intervene and possibly change the outcome of Dahmer's future. Why were they not concerned that their child had no friends; that he rode around all day collecting dead animals? I believe that Jeffrey is truly an example of nurture kicking off nature.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very creepy! I'm a Criminal Justice major so I know a lot about Dahmer and serial killers in general, but it's nice to read a "real" book about him - not just a bland text book! Really cool. I like the chronological style too - it helps me feel like I was right there when everything went down!

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this when I was in college back in the day... What a story. What a tragedy. I wonder how his life would have turned out had his parents been there for him and if he stayed away from alcohol. Something inside of him was broken.

[Briánna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disgustingly disturbing.

[Cedella O’Reilly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best Jeffrey Dahmer book i’ve read thus far. Very refreshing to have more of a focus on the victims and police brutality rather than straight gore.

[Robbyn Lowry · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm live near Milwaukee and this was front page news after he was arrested. The papers left out a lot of the details of Dahmer's crimes, so I chose the book to see if it would answer some of the questions I remembered having had back then. It was a reasonably informative book, but did not cover his prison time.

[Leah · Rating 1 out of 5]

Really poorly written. Really poorly edited (as in, sentences without periods, etc.). The book was published/written before Dahmer even went to trial which is some of the most interesting stuff. I found a full documentary on YouTube that was much more enlightening.

[Juicy_Groot · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book but it really disturbed/freaked me out.

[Kristin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Is it strange that I found this author hilarious?

[Angela Gebhardt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting to read but horribly written.

[Jeremy Godfrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

lots of gory info a trully good book

[Stay Fetters · Rating 4 out of 5]

What is Dahmer's favorite breakfast food?
Scrambled Legs.

Disturbing and horrific. These victims were so easily lured by the chop chop man. Its really sickening, but im also very intrigued.

[Steph · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writing isn't great, the editing is weak, but the story of Dahmer's wickedness is fascinatingly horrifying.

[Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

the book was ok, it didn't get into the reasoning or why he did what he did as much as i wanted. to me the book was more just a recapping of the events that happened in the order they happened.

[Nancy Prins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disturbing book about the mass murders committed by serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. Focused mainly on the murders and didn't go into a lot of his past and childhood which could have given some insight into causation and motivations behind his sick mind . Written early enough that didn't cover the trial or prison time.