Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters

Rating:
Summary: Definitive History of Serial Murder
Review: Right from the beginning the author of this book states that he is not an expert on serial killers-he is just like most readers-a curious amateur. The only difference from the rest of us, he writes, is that he very briefly encountered by accident two serial killers before they were captured. That difference is not that he encountered them, but that he discovered that he had done so, he explains. The rest of us might be lucky to have passed by "our" serial killers and not know it. How many, he asks, do we sit next to on the bus or stand behind in line at supermarket and never find out? The discovery of his own encounters, with Richard ("Times Square Ripper") Cottingham in New York and with Andrei ("Red Ripper-Citizen-X) Chikatilo in Russia, inspired Vronsky to write his book-a history of serial killers.

Vronsky's claim to being an amateur is not quite correct. He is a former journalist and according to his website he is currently working on his Ph.D. in history. Not quite the amateur. As a history, Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters is a formidable work of research paying careful attention to fact and to debunking myths about serial killers. Vronsky traces the historical record on serial homicide back to the Roman Empire and follows it through into medieval times, unearthing the records of serial homicide trials attributing murders to vampires and werewolves, a type of insanity plea of the time, he suggests. He provides a fascinating account of the "London Monster" who a hundred years prior to Jack the Ripper would stalk and stab women on the streets of London, without killing them, and he explores the build-up of sexual crimes against female victims in Europe just before Jack the Ripper comes on the scene.

Vronsky is clearly a historian and often fits the phenomenon of serial murder into a historically social context. He describes the proliferation of serial killing in the sixties by pegging the rise of homicides to the Boston Strangler's murder of one of his victims on the day JFK was buried. He writes, "The death of JFK defined for us the halfway point between Pearl Harbor and 9/11-when bad things stopped happening `over there' and began to occur `over here.'" His description of the proliferation of [...] through the Internet and the decline of the porn stores on Times Square and [...] tenuous relationship to fueling homicidal fantasies is fascinating. With an even hand, Vronsky also looks at the relationship of the Bible to fueling those same murderous fantasies.

Serial Killers explores the issue of how many serial killers really are out there and debunks the often cited number of 50,000 missing children that John Walsh, the host of America's Most Wanted, claimed were kidnapped and murdered every year by serial killers. Vronsky takes a hard look at the history of the FBI behavioral sciences profiling and reveals some of its failures and looks at the most recent studies of the weaknesses of profiling.

Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters is divided into three parts-into three histories-the history of the crime, the history of the psychology of serial killers, and the history of investigating and defeating them. The most compelling chapter perhaps is the final one on defeating serial killers: what you can do if a serial killer encounters or captures you to increase your chances of survival. Citing numerous studies of surviving victims, Vronsky takes the reader through various intensities of encounters looking at the various actions taken by victims who survived. The relationship between the serial killer and the surviving victim is perhaps the most horrifying treatment of serial murder that I have read for what it reveals about all the cases where the victim did not survive.

Vronsky's book is a compelling read, bridging academic literature on the subject with the drama of true crime writing. His presentation of psychological, historical, and legal theory on serial killers is current and free of academic jargon, accessible to most readers. At the same time, Vronsky peppers his book with detailed accounts of serial murders, some famous like those of the Boston Strangler and Ted Bundy, some recent, like the Green River Killer and the Washington Beltway snipers, and some I have never read about, like the story of Peter Woodcock, a three-time serial killer who patiently waited 35 years for a six-hour escorted day-pass from prison for an opportunity to kill again. But even in his treatment of famous cases, Vronsky brings to bear his training as a historian. His exploration of Ted Bundy, for example, seeks to resolve all the conflicting accounts that vary from book to book, as does Vronsky's exploration of the origins of the term "serial killer." Where the author fails to resolve the conflict, he lays out all the alternative possibilities.

The approach to meticulous detail, to debunking numerous myths, to the most recent cases, and to the most current advances in the psychology and investigative techniques in serial murder makes this book one of the best and most up-to-date on the history of serial killers. There is something for everyone in this book. While there are numerous encyclopedic treatments of the history of serial murder, this book provides a detailed account of the salient issues in serial homicide. It is well indexed and evenly footnoted citing the hundreds of sources the Vronsky researched in producing this history. There is a photo insert in the book, some never seen before, but the reader is warned that some are extremely graphic and horrifying.

Certainly the best overall history of the subject available out there-perhaps the only one of its kind.