Evil Psychopaths

by Gordon Kerr

EVIL PSYCHOPATHS

Genres: Crime, True Crime, Nonfiction, History

512 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2009

About the author

Gordon Kerr was born in the Scottish new town of East Kilbride and worked in the wine trade and then bookselling and publishing before becoming a full-time writer. He is the author of numerous books in a variety of genres, including art, history, true crime, travel and humour. He has a wife and two children and lives in Hampshire and—when he can—South West France.

Reviews

[Amaya · Rating 1 out of 5]

Boring. Spitting up a series of dates or facts rates as poor narrative. Badly edited, blatant dates uncoherence: someone born in 1549 can't get married by 1850 (Stubbe, page 44)

[Siobhan · Rating 3 out of 5]

We all have those family members who like to lumber you with things once they find out about your interest.

Well this book came from my aunt when she found out about my interest in forensic psychology. Supposedly I need to become an expert in the criminal world – mainly I need to be able to recite the heinous acts of countless individuals across history.

Okay, maybe she did not put it like that but it sort of felt that way when she handed me numerous books on the topic.

Still, despite the fact that such a thing can be viewed as being exceptionally weird, the books she gave me were all interesting reads. This one included. It is educational (even if it is not the kind of topic you would want to teach at school) and an interesting read.

Whilst not my usual I rather enjoyed reading the details of this book.

[Jess · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is not that well written, but interesting nonetheless to read about all of these psychopaths (or suspected psychopaths). Some of them I can't believe I hadn't heard of before. Extremely disturbing in parts but true.

[Hannele · Rating 2 out of 5]

The topic is interesting but the book is quite poorly written. Additionally, as I did more research on the murderers online, it seemed like some parts of the book were copied almost directly from Wikipedia.

[Deidra Rowe · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the book. I am not sure all of the facts are accurate as I have read other books with conflicting information. For an overall quick snippet of murders and their crimes this was a great read. I did find some grammatical errors but will continue to read more of the books in this series.

[Kathryn Minn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another very interesting book on a look into the criminal and psychopathic mind. I rather liked the different types of people that the book delves into and liked how they were seperated into their own seperate chapters. It highlighted the differences that criminals and psychopaths from different times and places could be different but it also showed how they all shared character traits and habits. It was well written and the book was easy to read and makes you realise that psychopaths and killers can be found anywhere and that criminal behaviour is not just a feature of our time but spans back almost right to the beginning of human civialisation. It highlights how evil has always existed and most likely always will. I would only recommend it to adults as it does have some rather explicit content that could be found disturbing to younger people.

[Debjyoti · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book delves into the minds of the most notorious psychopaths in history: Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, David Berkowitz, Dennis Rader, Jeffrey Dahmer, Charles Manson, Ed Gein, H.H. Holmes, Peter Sutcliffe, Andrei Chikatilo, Pedro Lopez and Gary Ridgway. Kerr provides a detailed account of each individual's crimes, motivations, and psychological profiles. The chapters are engaging and easy to read. The book, however, lacks depth in its analysis of the psychopaths' minds and the chapters somehow feel disconnected with eachother.

[Alice · Rating 2 out of 5]

A decent over view of lots of mass murders, Serial killers, spree killers and psychopaths. Not all the information in this book is 100% accurate and some of it was total speculation on the part of the author.

[Karen Green · Rating 3 out of 5]

Worth a read but full of spelling errors

[Medhat ullah · Rating 5 out of 5]

pathological malevolence, narcissistic tendency & socio-path

[Sergio GRANDE · Rating 2 out of 5]

Poor. I got this book to do some research on a character for a story. It was a waste of time.

More than a book, this is just a summarized compilation of information readily available online. There's nothing special about it; no insights, no first-hand info. It would probably take a research assistant less than a week to compile all these facts.

Avoid it. Unless you want to save yourself the cost of a research assistant and week of sifting through online articles.

[SimplyAtomic · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were some great parts to this book but for the most part it was a complete snoozefest that I had to force myself to finish.

[Ashlee Ellis · Rating 3 out of 5]

interesting subject matter but not greatly written, badly edited and no real conclusion.

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely not the greatest writing, but it was interesting to read none the less. Would of been nice to have some pictures of the killer, victims, and locations to go a long with the book.

[Anum Sattar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vlad the impaler was awesome. I loved his ways of extermination; true evil genius...

[Grace · Rating 3 out of 5]

Less mistakes than other true crime books. Boring enough to send me back to my comedy shelf.