The Serial Killer Files: The Who, What, Where, How, and Why of the World's Most Terrifying Murderers
by Harold Schechter
Originally published December 30 2003
Nonfiction, True crime, Psychology
Let's start by saying I am not an unbiased reviewer, but that is what reviews are all about. so.
This is a thick nonfiction book that sets out to be "the definitive dossier on history's most heinous". It focuses not on a specific case or aspect of serial killers, but tries to cover on a surface level a very wide range of things within the topic, I Assume geared at newcomers to true crime
It works mostly fine for this purpose! But if you already know some things about serial killers you'll be hearing a Lot of information you already know and either way you will be hearing a Lot of repetitions and redundancy. This book is not shy to repeat things over and over and constantly bring up the same few people like I think Albert Fish is brought up a hundred+ times in this book and everytime his story and acts are explained again and again without actually getting more in-depth about it or bringing new things to the table. I think Albert Fish must be the author's favorite serial killer or something
This is not a book you read quickly. If you read it over the course of a week or a month the repetition will be very noticeable. But I think this is best consumed as a book you take with you and read slowly over the course of a year or more, like I did for much of it..
Perhaps the author was way too ambitious with this book, and its wide array of topics ended up hindering it, because there's just too much to go into and not enough pages. I feel like it would've been a lot better if it focused on SOMETHING specific about serial killers and was less quantity-over-quality
The book was at its strongest when focusing on the Why part of the 'who, what, where, how and why' so I wish it was just about that. At least I can say it has inspired me to seek out better books about the topic. Though I don't think that's what you want to hear about your book you tout as THE DEFINITIVE DOSSIER ON HISTORY'S MOST HEINOUS
A lot of it is written sensationally, almost pornographic in detail and to a lot of readers this would definitely be distracting and feel like just. cheap shock value. But as a big reader of splatterpunk I really don't mind it much, buuut for a book trying to be THE DEFINITIVE DOSSIER on serial killers it would probably have been better to have consistently stayed in a more neutral tone, educative tone
What bothered my reading experience the most was the author's strange bias against women as a whole and transgender women & sex workers specifically. He is way too trigger-happy calling people prostitutes and hookers and bitches and transvestites and transexuals and it makes me recoil a little bit every time. There is a total of One section that's dedicated just to female serial killers and everytime they are brought up they are treated like uniquely less capable of atrocities compared to male serial killers and I don't know. It just left a gross taste in my mouth everytime he spoke about them.
The crossdressing of certain serial killers was always mentioned, right in between their other habits like torturing animals and collecting human organs in shoe boxes. It felt as if their "transvestite"ness (as the author so lovingly calls them) was portrayed as a symptom of their evilness and immorality and degeneracy. And I'm not about that. And yes, yes, I know the book was published in 2003 but I've the right to complain
Another part that was iffy to me was the very tail end of the book, where I think the author had a quota to fill and ran out of ideas so there's just lists of movies and shows and books with serial killers in them. I lol'd. After all the gruesome crimes described, that part felt incredibly strange and a bit tone deaf. At least one of the listed movies sounded interesting though, so I might watch that.
I know that was a lot of complaints, but I actually still enjoyed the book as someone interested in true crime and serial killer psychology and I think it's not the worst book as an introduction to it, however it's definitely not great, or maybe even good. It's fine. I didn't actually notice majority of these problems until 3/4 into the book.
It's best enjoyed as dumb fun. And some would argue that's not what a book on serial killers should be, and I'm inclined to agree.
3.5/5
