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Description edit
If you're like most Americans, you'll find yourself slowing down on the highway near the scene of an accident, hoping to catch a glimpse of the mayhem. You probably also secretly enjoy the fistfights that break out at hockey games or hearing about the lurid details revealed during sensational... read more
Characters/People edit
- Jason Moss: Fascinated by violence, and decided to become a profiler, writing fan letters to serial killersand terrorists to prove to the FBI that he could engage them
- Richard Ramirez: aka The Los Angeles Night Stalker
- Henry Lee Lucas: Went to Death Row in Texas, believed to have killed 11 people, although at one point he claimed over 350
- John Wayne Gacy: Executed in Ohio for 33 murders
- Stephen King: A once-famous horror writer
- Charles Manson: America's best-known psychotic terrorist
- Clyde Barrow: Leader of a small-time gang of robbers who were immortalized on film
- Jeffrey Dahmer: aka the Milwaukee Cannibal
- Ted Bundy: A very photogenic and smooth-talking serial killer, who confessed to 36 murders shortly before his execution in Florida
Quotes edit
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“I think we ought to read only the kinds of books that wound and stab us. If the book we are reading doesn't wake us up with a blow on the head, then what are we reading it for?”
Franz Kafka -
“The first time I killed someone I expected some dark angel to swoop down out of the sky and cart me off to hell. But it didn't happen. You get something much worse. You have to live with yourself for the rest of your days.”
A former member of the Dixie Mafia -
“People ask me if they should go out and kill people. I'm not saying that some people don't need to die, but hey, the guard reads all my letters.”
Henry Lee Lucas -
“Pliers. Pliers are something I think about a lot.”
Richard Ramirez
First Sentence edit
When I was of impressionable age, perhaps ten or eleven, I remember going to the usual Saturday matinee with my grandfather.
Table of Contents edit
Preface
1 -- Paradoxes of Violence
2 -- From Roman to Contemporary Gladiators
3 -- True Crime
4 -- Sports Fans
5 -- Zombies, Vampires, Monsters
6 -- Serial Killer Groupies: Attraction to Predators
7 -- Moving Violations and Other Eyewitness Curiosities
8 -- Occupations of Violence
9 -- The Meaning of Mayhem
10 -- What's Normal and What's Abnormal?
11-- Exploring the Forbidden
12 -- What the Future Holds
Notes
References
Index
About the Author
Glossary edit
- Digi-necking: A vriation on rubbernecking, in which gawkers record cars accidents and such on their camera phoen to share with others,
Errata edit
In the preface, the author states that Marli Renfro, Janet Leigh's body double in PSYCHO, was raped and murdered; in fact it was Janet Leigh's lighting stand-in, an entirely diffferent person.
In Chapter 6 he states that Henry Lee Lucas killed "hundreds" of people. Lucas's exaggerated claims of 350-500 victims were debunked long before this book was published, and he ultimately went to death row related to the deaths of 11 people.
The author repeatedly describes John Wayne Gacy as the 'Clown Killer.' This would imply that he killed clowns. In fact he was called the Killer Clown because of his volunteer work in hospitals doing a magic routine in a clown suit, totally unrelated to his killings.
Authors & Contributors edit
- Jeffrey A. Kottler (Author)
Classification edit
- Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
- Dewey: 303.6
Subjects edit
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