Mass Murderers

This true crime book is a wonderful antidote to the Ann Rule cases, where young, beautiful, innocent victims are always falling for some crudball psychopath. If nothing else, the editors of the Time-Life crime books are less apt to overuse clichés and wimpy adjectives. The writing is crisp and factual. A standard feature of any Time-Life book is the photographs, and the crime series holds to this tradition. Criminologists categorize people who kill several victims in a single short and bloody episode as 'mass murderers.' This particular book has seven chapters, featuring the following mass murderers: * "Loser"--Richard Speck--"Yeah, I killed them. I stabbed them and I choked them." Eight young nurses were murdered by Speck, and that might not have been his only mass murder. Police also suspected him of the 1966 deaths of three young women in the Indiana Dunes National Lakefront Park, whose bodies were never found. * "The Tower"--Charles Whitman--"At times it seems as if I am going to explode."--Whitman killed his wife and mother before climbing to the top of the University of Texas clock tower and killing 16 other innocent victims. * "Days of Rage"--Snapshots of fourteen murderers who killed a total of 123 people. * "Mata"--Mark Essex--"My destiny lies in the bloody death of racist pigs." 9 people were killed and 12 people were seriously wounded, mainly in the New Orleans Howard Johnson hotel where Essex made his stand. * "The Tally"--James Huberty--"I believe in paying my debts, both good and bad." Huberty was responsible for the massacre of 21 people at the San Ysidro McDonald's restaurant. * "Small Game"--Marc Lépine--"Feminists have always had a talent for enraging me."--14 women died; 15 men and women were injured, some seriously. Lepine was Canada's worst mass murderer. * "War Game"--Michael Ryan--"I wish I had stayed in bed." --15 victims, including his mother in Hungerford, England. Most of the killers featured in "Mass Murderers" died from police fire or self-inflicted gunshot wounds. One of the most chilling features of this book is the amount of documentation that the killers left behind to justify their massacres.

This is a oversize true crime book with many pictures. It had Richard Speck, Charles Whitman, Howard Unruh, Arizona killer Robert Smith and others. If you are a true crime fan this is a book to read. full of information.