What do you think?
Rate this book
Serial Killers: They Live to Kill
A well-liked, respected, caring member of the community - or an outsider, socially inept & with a frightening appearance? Wearing many different masks, serial killers are among the most disturbing & dangerous violent criminals in existence. They are individuals who have a history of multiple murders, normally committed over a long period of time & often with periods of apparent normality in between. With their different appearances & motives, serial killers are hard to identify & understand. Yet they must be caught. For the one unifying characteristic serial killers share is their inability to feel any remorse, & consequently their need to keep on killing... Serial killers appear to be sexually dysfunctional and have low self-esteem. Their methodical rampages are often a part of an elaborate fantasy that builds to a climax at the moment of their murderous outburst. Serial killers generally murder strangers with cooling off periods between each crime. Many enjoy cannibalism, necrophilia and keep trophy-like body parts as mementos of their work. Serial killers are sadistic in nature. Some return to crime scenes or grave sites of their victims to fantasize about their deeds. Many like to insert themselves in the investigation of their crimes and some enjoy taunting authorities with letters or carefully placed pieces of evidence.
576 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 2005
11 people are currently reading
118 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
August 27, 2022
I wasn't sure I was going to like this just because I was judging this book but the size of it. It is a heavy read. physically and emotionally. I did enjoy this for the fact that the chapters are fairly short and it gives you a breakdown of one serial killer at time. With other reads it just tells you the facts of what happened, but this read did go into some depth as to why the serial killers killed. I am very interested in serial killers and this book was a interesting read for some that I already knew about, and ones that I know nothing about.
Although I have a high interest in serial killers, this is heavy. To read over and over again about the victims and what they went through is a lot to take in, and made me feel incredibly sad at points, so I was rude this whilst in a good state of mind.
Although I have a high interest in serial killers, this is heavy. To read over and over again about the victims and what they went through is a lot to take in, and made me feel incredibly sad at points, so I was rude this whilst in a good state of mind.
June 20, 2009
Read a few of the stories in here. Mainly the one about John Wayne Gacy. Damn, people do some sick things. I think it is a good idea to have some insight into their methodology.
I mean seriously John Wayne Gacy was high profile. He put on charity events to raise money for Jimmy Carter's re-election. Had a successful business and 28 children buried in his yard. Really!
And how many women would have lived if Ted Bundy had been captured and tried sooner? Who knows?
This book covers some of the most famous serial killers. From William the Conqueror to Al Capone to Aileen Wuornos to Idi Amin (who scares the hell outta me).
I'll write more when I finish it.
I was really bored and not really wanting to read any of my other books. This book must be a little out dated because some of the serial killers have been caught since it was published.
Otherwise a good read for someone who doesnt mind the occassion typo. (that drives me nuts--really who proof-reads these books)
I mean seriously John Wayne Gacy was high profile. He put on charity events to raise money for Jimmy Carter's re-election. Had a successful business and 28 children buried in his yard. Really!
And how many women would have lived if Ted Bundy had been captured and tried sooner? Who knows?
This book covers some of the most famous serial killers. From William the Conqueror to Al Capone to Aileen Wuornos to Idi Amin (who scares the hell outta me).
I'll write more when I finish it.
I was really bored and not really wanting to read any of my other books. This book must be a little out dated because some of the serial killers have been caught since it was published.
Otherwise a good read for someone who doesnt mind the occassion typo. (that drives me nuts--really who proof-reads these books)
February 27, 2019
Poorly edited, badly written, and were it not for my interest in the subject matter I would not have finsihed it.
June 8, 2019
This book was bad. And I advise that you pick up any other book besides this one, it was filled with false facts and spelling mistakes. The first 100 pages seemed to be okay and were actually enjoyable however things quickly fell apart.
There was a ton of spelling and grammatical mistakes through this book as if it was all typed up in a hurry and not proofread. If someone had looked it over they would have been sure to notice that size is spelled with a z and not two s's. Or that twenty starts with a t and not a y. They were littered throughout the book and made the whole thing feel rushed and not cared about.
I've also read a fair amount on the Bundy case and this was the first book that I believe has ever mentioned that he dated crime author and colleague Ann Rule, or that he drove a green pickup. It also says that Carol DeRonch was unable to pick Bundy out in a photographic lineup but I could have sworn she was one of the women who actually identified Bundy as her attacker, but maybe I'm wrong. Overall, the Bundy chapter didn't sit right with me. I also noticed that there seemed to a few wrong things with the Manson chapter but I can't remember what that was off the top of my head.
One of the chapters including was called 'Lady Killers' in which the author placed Richard Ramirez and The Zodiac Killer next to people like Ted Bundy, Jack The Ripper and Peter Sutcliffe. It made no sense as both the Zodiac and Ramirez killed men, therefore, they weren't just lady killers, and they differentiated from others in that category as there's wasn't motivated by sex and hatred towards women.
[I also feel like he could have mentioned how Satanic Ramirez was on trial and during the killings a bit more, I mean the author never mentioned that he made his victims 'swear to Satan that they won't scream' which would be terrifying for a religious person to do.]
[The author also only credited Dale Harden for cracking the Zodiac cipher despite the fact that Harden cracked it with the help of his wife Bettye and I feel like it was a bit of a rude thing to do, by not giving her credit.]
Something that confused me for a short while was the out of date chapter on the Green River Killer. I don't know if this book was published under a different name prior to Gary Ridgway being captured, but the edition I'm reading was first published in 2005 and then again in 2011. Which doesn't explain why they haven't updated the chapter with Ridgway's capture since he was caught in 2001, four years before this book was published. It just felt lazy, and a way to make money without caring about what was inside. So what if a killer has been caught, they clearly didn't feel the need to change anything. Just publish away.
A personal preference to end this on would have been to have more than four pages of Aileen Wuornos. I feel like her case was boiled down to the bare minimum and others were stretched out despite not needing to be, which made little sense as Wuornos led an interesting life before and during her killings. Even her trail was interesting, yet the author trickled her case to as short as possible. She is different from most kinds of serial killing women as she decided to kill violently instead of the typical neat and easy to pass off as accidental death that is assumed with female killers.
[Oh one last side note, I didn't like how Dr John Bodkin Adams and Dr Harold Shipman's chapters were next to each other, it felt like I was reading the same storyline with different character names. I think it would have been better if they were separated by the Joseph Mengele case so that it was a little different in between and it wasn't the same straight after each other.]
There was a ton of spelling and grammatical mistakes through this book as if it was all typed up in a hurry and not proofread. If someone had looked it over they would have been sure to notice that size is spelled with a z and not two s's. Or that twenty starts with a t and not a y. They were littered throughout the book and made the whole thing feel rushed and not cared about.
I've also read a fair amount on the Bundy case and this was the first book that I believe has ever mentioned that he dated crime author and colleague Ann Rule, or that he drove a green pickup. It also says that Carol DeRonch was unable to pick Bundy out in a photographic lineup but I could have sworn she was one of the women who actually identified Bundy as her attacker, but maybe I'm wrong. Overall, the Bundy chapter didn't sit right with me. I also noticed that there seemed to a few wrong things with the Manson chapter but I can't remember what that was off the top of my head.
One of the chapters including was called 'Lady Killers' in which the author placed Richard Ramirez and The Zodiac Killer next to people like Ted Bundy, Jack The Ripper and Peter Sutcliffe. It made no sense as both the Zodiac and Ramirez killed men, therefore, they weren't just lady killers, and they differentiated from others in that category as there's wasn't motivated by sex and hatred towards women.
[I also feel like he could have mentioned how Satanic Ramirez was on trial and during the killings a bit more, I mean the author never mentioned that he made his victims 'swear to Satan that they won't scream' which would be terrifying for a religious person to do.]
[The author also only credited Dale Harden for cracking the Zodiac cipher despite the fact that Harden cracked it with the help of his wife Bettye and I feel like it was a bit of a rude thing to do, by not giving her credit.]
Something that confused me for a short while was the out of date chapter on the Green River Killer. I don't know if this book was published under a different name prior to Gary Ridgway being captured, but the edition I'm reading was first published in 2005 and then again in 2011. Which doesn't explain why they haven't updated the chapter with Ridgway's capture since he was caught in 2001, four years before this book was published. It just felt lazy, and a way to make money without caring about what was inside. So what if a killer has been caught, they clearly didn't feel the need to change anything. Just publish away.
A personal preference to end this on would have been to have more than four pages of Aileen Wuornos. I feel like her case was boiled down to the bare minimum and others were stretched out despite not needing to be, which made little sense as Wuornos led an interesting life before and during her killings. Even her trail was interesting, yet the author trickled her case to as short as possible. She is different from most kinds of serial killing women as she decided to kill violently instead of the typical neat and easy to pass off as accidental death that is assumed with female killers.
[Oh one last side note, I didn't like how Dr John Bodkin Adams and Dr Harold Shipman's chapters were next to each other, it felt like I was reading the same storyline with different character names. I think it would have been better if they were separated by the Joseph Mengele case so that it was a little different in between and it wasn't the same straight after each other.]
June 8, 2023
If you are new to true crime fiction and love reading about serial killers, then you will find this book interesting. Serial killers are the most violent and dangerous killers in human existence because they do not feel any empathy or remorse like normal human beings. They keep on killing until they are caught. They are also good at pretending to have normal lives while killing people constantly without any guilt. The author has categorized serial killers into various groups and covered different timelines. From ancient Kings to modern serial killers like Ted Bundy, the menacing list of serial killers gives us an idea about how serial killers operate and choose their victims. But the author has concentrated only on European and American serial killers. There is no mention of any modern serial killers from India and Latin American countries. Notorious persons like Saddam Hussein and Joseph Stalin are also included in the list of serial killers since they killed many people by using their power and position although they fall under political killings. He dealt with various categories - Killer Kings and Queens, Cannibal Killers, Sadists, Team killers, Lady Killers, Mad Men and Mad Women, and Killer Doctors.
The writing is simple and easy to understand, but I found grammatical errors on some pages. It is a heavy read; the book has six hundred pages, but my interest in the subject has kept me motivated to complete reading this book. Overall, this book is a good starting point for anyone who wants to know about serial killers.
The writing is simple and easy to understand, but I found grammatical errors on some pages. It is a heavy read; the book has six hundred pages, but my interest in the subject has kept me motivated to complete reading this book. Overall, this book is a good starting point for anyone who wants to know about serial killers.
July 25, 2019
Interesting book for superficial reading, but some of the cases were very dragged out whereas others were just as interesting, but finished within two or three pages. There were lots of spelling and punctuation mistakes, too, but I usually don't get too hung up on that.
January 2, 2024
True story: The internet and phone lines are down, indefinitely. As a distraction, you offer your average, literate non-reader a dozen interesting books of varied genres, this one included. Nine out of ten will pick this hefty red book on serial killers.
July 2, 2019
If you are interested in serial killers I would highly reccomend this book. The reason i gave this 4 out of 5 stars is because it doesn't really answer any questions. Only asks them. Other than that, it's a great read and full of information. The author has clearly done his research.
June 21, 2015
As mentioned in my review of Cannibals and Evil Cult Killers, this is a good starting point of you are looking for a starting point for research.
The author takes a broad definition of the term "serial killer" including rulers of countries, executioners and others who are not usually classified as serial killers, such as rulers of countries, executioners, assassins, and those whose actions lead to the deaths of more than one person, though they themselves did not deal a killing blow.
This book, also published by Time Warner Books, is also filled with enough spelling and grammatical errors to make me doubt the merit of the information in the book. As in the other book, there is no bibliography or citation notes section, so no faith can be put in the entries since there is no way to check the "facts" put forth by the author. If researching for factual information, one would do better going to Wikipedia.
Another problem I had with this author was his continual use of words like "evil" and "monsters" to describe the killers written about in this book. I am not disagreeing that what they did was horrible, however, it is not the place of an author writing a non-fictional account to pass judgement on his subject or let his own beliefs cloud the text. He goes so far as to place himself into the action of one of the sections in which the killer was investigated by his father, a former police officer.
Yet another aspect that led to my one star rating is that the author including The Zodiac Killer in "The Lady Killers" section in the company of killers like Jack the Ripper and Ted Bundy. The Zodiac Killer's victims included both men and women, so one would think he obviously does not belong in this section.
The author includes information about David Berkowitz (Son of Sam) that I was not familiar with, but since he does not include a reference, who's to know if it's true? He includes Stalin, Idi Amin, Ho Chi Minh, Hussein, Himmler and Mengele, even Jim Jones, yet Hitler is conspicuously absent in such infamous company.
Dr Jeffrey MacDonald is given a reaming by the author and is one of the targets of his "monstrous" and "evil" modifiers, yet in a much superior book I've read about that case (it's been several years and I can't recall the title off hand, but it's in my read list) there is enough room for doubt that MacDonald was the killer that he does not belong in this book.
It's a quick read and enough to give ideas to fiction writers, but if you're writing a paper or true crime book, I recommend looking elsewhere for your information.
The author takes a broad definition of the term "serial killer" including rulers of countries, executioners and others who are not usually classified as serial killers, such as rulers of countries, executioners, assassins, and those whose actions lead to the deaths of more than one person, though they themselves did not deal a killing blow.
This book, also published by Time Warner Books, is also filled with enough spelling and grammatical errors to make me doubt the merit of the information in the book. As in the other book, there is no bibliography or citation notes section, so no faith can be put in the entries since there is no way to check the "facts" put forth by the author. If researching for factual information, one would do better going to Wikipedia.
Another problem I had with this author was his continual use of words like "evil" and "monsters" to describe the killers written about in this book. I am not disagreeing that what they did was horrible, however, it is not the place of an author writing a non-fictional account to pass judgement on his subject or let his own beliefs cloud the text. He goes so far as to place himself into the action of one of the sections in which the killer was investigated by his father, a former police officer.
Yet another aspect that led to my one star rating is that the author including The Zodiac Killer in "The Lady Killers" section in the company of killers like Jack the Ripper and Ted Bundy. The Zodiac Killer's victims included both men and women, so one would think he obviously does not belong in this section.
The author includes information about David Berkowitz (Son of Sam) that I was not familiar with, but since he does not include a reference, who's to know if it's true? He includes Stalin, Idi Amin, Ho Chi Minh, Hussein, Himmler and Mengele, even Jim Jones, yet Hitler is conspicuously absent in such infamous company.
Dr Jeffrey MacDonald is given a reaming by the author and is one of the targets of his "monstrous" and "evil" modifiers, yet in a much superior book I've read about that case (it's been several years and I can't recall the title off hand, but it's in my read list) there is enough room for doubt that MacDonald was the killer that he does not belong in this book.
It's a quick read and enough to give ideas to fiction writers, but if you're writing a paper or true crime book, I recommend looking elsewhere for your information.
February 3, 2021
Genuinely the worst quality book I have ever read in my life. The book is riddled with countless simple grammatical and editing errors, everything from missing punctuation, capitalization, and entire words. The author also has a tendency to randomly insert his own opinion and layman's psychoanalysis of the killers when the book is supposedly supposed to be factual recounts of the killers and their cases. The book is genuinely written like a series of high school essays. Not to mention the fact that most of the "killers" in the book are not what society or most people would consider to be serial killers at all. The only thing this book is really useful for is to discover new cases, but you should read info about them elsewhere.
May 8, 2012
I picked up this book in Khan's, Kilkenny, which is a remainder shop. Perhaps it was an outdated version or something. The conclusion seemed to be attached to the penultimate chapter and the final chapter just finished in mid air. Content wise, I'd heard of most of the mentioned serial killers and found the style of delivery to be haphazardly journalistic, poorly written in parts and occasionally opinionated and unsubstantiated.
The book does have the rubber-necking lure of serial killer atrocities but overall it left me with a similar feeling to having seen a flimsy TV documentary on the subject. I'm not sure that I would trust the facts as presented.
The book does have the rubber-necking lure of serial killer atrocities but overall it left me with a similar feeling to having seen a flimsy TV documentary on the subject. I'm not sure that I would trust the facts as presented.
August 14, 2009
An interesting collection of pyschos and killers with enough detail on each to keep you happy but not so much to give you nightmares unless of course you are easily disturbed. A good quick reference to some of the world's most sadistic killers although it does not provide much in the way of analysis of why these people commit such acts
October 8, 2010
Although this book had some good information, I'm sure as to what to believe. Some of the information concerning Charles Manson was false. There were discrepancies in some of the other articles. I think that books like this should be edited more carefully since some may use it as a source for a research paper or report.
June 29, 2014
Yes it does have lots of typos and it should be edited better. But overall I think it's an interesting book. There isn't too much gruesomeness in there. It was fascinating how serial killers started to kill and what triggered them. Also how they have been caught or how police failed in catching them.
January 24, 2016
It took me a bit to get through this due to mentally correcting the multiple spelling and grammatical errors. Good and basic information was provided, but other than that, nothing made this book exceptional. I might use it as a quick reference for main facts, but nothing further than that.
January 3, 2014
Good overview of popular serial killers from way back when to today ...
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews