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Summary: Sweetness
Review: Seriously dudes. This book is so good and very interesting. It's long but once you looked at it you take if everywhere with you. Everyone you come across wants to look at it and read it. I never even got to read the whole thing after two months of purchasing it because people wanted to borrow it so much. You will be very happy with this investment and so will a lot of other people. Greatness is what this book is all about.
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Summary: The only book you need...
Review: Theis is an amazing a-z book on serial killers. Anything that you wanted to know about anybody, what they did, how they did it, where they are from etc.... A true cookbook of killers.
Rating:
Summary: A great resource
Review: This book is the best resource for broad information on the subject of serial killers I have yet read.If you are looking for a wide variety of fact on the subject but don't want to put the effort into a lot of research this is the book. This book is not as indepth or as comprehensive as some of the single subject serial killer books I have read, but it does provide a wealth of information for starting out.
Rating: 
Summary: Only a starting point
Review: This book may look like a good starting point on serial killers but that's it. I haven't read the book yet and I've already found many mistakes: out of date information, exclusion of remarkable cases (Daniel Camargo, Charles Whitman), Factual errors (Colombia has no death penalty), etc. The book is not that bad, but it's not completely trustable. You can use this book to get acquaintance with the general subject and then research on specific cases of your choice, at least that's what I'm doing.
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Summary: Angel Makers to Zodiac Killers
Review: This is a fascinating read for true crime buffs. The author's stated purpose is to "demystify, as far as possible, those predators in human form who have been with us since the dawn of history..." Serial killers at large are so frightening that they end up touching all of our lives--most especially in the United States, where 84% of all known serial killers have committed their crimes since 1980. I first became aware of this type of human predator when I was a student at the University of Michigan, and John Norman Collins was murdering coeds with pierced ears and long brown hair. (Oddly enough, Collins is missing from this encyclopedia even though he killed at least seven women--possibly because he was only charged and tried for the murder of one of them. A second edition is planned, so there is a possibility that this omission will be corrected).
California native Michael Newton has published 181 books since 1977, including 147 novels but he is best known for his true crime and reference works. I have to say that I assumed this author was British because of his concise, witty style and also for his tendency to critique other true crime authors who failed to get their facts straight, including the names of a serial killer's victims. One of his special peeves is the term 'spree killer,' and he also doesn't seem to think much of profilers.
Most of the entries in this encyclopedia are concerned with the serial killers themselves, whether they acted alone, in twosomes, or in packs. One of the biggest surprises for me was the large number of serial killers who are or were women. Something like 12% of all serial killers are female, and Hungarian women seem especially prone to this behavior, starting with Countess Erzsebet Báthory in the sixteenth century whose final body count was somewhere between 300 and 650 victims. In the early 1900s,Vera Renczi murdered 35 husbands, lovers, and a son and was arrested by the police only after they searched her basement and discovered 35 zinc coffins. "Some evenings, Vera liked to sit among the coffins in an armchair and enjoy the company of her adoring beaux." Then there were the "Angel Makers of Nagyrev"...
Well, let me just close by remarking that "The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers" is an extremely interesting source of information on the darker side of human nature. In addition to the encyclopedia entries, there are also appendices on "Solo Killers," "Team Killers," and "Unresolved Cases," plus an extensive bibliography.
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Summary: I have this strange feeling of Deja Vu!
Review: Upon receiving this book, I began to devour every word, thouroughly enjoying the information contained therein. Courious aout one entry, I decided to cross reference this book with a CD-Rom that I purchased 5 years ago, entitled "Mind of a Killer". I discovered, much to my dismay, that this book is a word-for-word rehash of the information contained in the book portion of the 1995 CD-Rom, specifically "Hunting Humans" written by Michael Newton. While I liked this book, I felt cheated. Aren't there laws against self-plagarism?
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Summary: Michael Newton never disappoints!
Review: Well-written and comprehensive, a gold mine of information. No true-crime library would be complete without this book!
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