My police officer Dad gave me this book for my birthday, he's sweet like that. The Shoemaker is a man named Joe Kallinger and through a combination of mentla illness and overly harsh parenting, he becomes a deranged murderer. So deranged that he recruits his young son to help him. The first part of the book is all about the crimes and was very interesting. The second half of the book was about his incarceration and his psychoanalysis and that totally put me to sleep. The writing is good, but, once the crimes end, so does my interest. ( )

I really struggled throughout this book. The way it was written was very confusing and many times information was repeated. Very interesting story and it was obvious the author was sympathetic toward the "mistreatment" of Joe. Research was also clearly done with great interest and care, however, there was not much said from other sources other than Joe himself . I was appalled that he didn't get the medical attention he so clearly needed and felt, as did the author, had this happened when opportunity existed, the crimes would not have happened. Very sad. ( )

The shoemaker - not a book I would select again having read this horrific story of a psychopath Joe Kallinger who did abused his family and who with his 12 year old son carried out 3 murders. The Author, Flora Schreiber was a psychiatrist who befriended Joe while investigating his background for the book when he was in Prison for one of the murders and for carrying out 3 home invasions and holding families hostage while he ransacked their houses and carried out other obscenities. His reasons for carrying out these attacks was that God had told him to carry out total annihilation of mankind. It appears that he always had a ready excuse for his murderous thoughts including that his 12 year old son encouraged him to do it. While the son was present at these attacks and murders including the death of another of Joe's sons and his brother - he wasn't implicated in the murders and only served a few years on a form of probation, while Joe went to Prison for Life.
I was surprised that I hadn't heard of this story which unfolded in Philadelphia in 1975 or the basis of the story hadn't appeared in other TV movies or programmes. The story is quite horrible and I couldn't read a lot of it at a time, - yet I had to read it to the finish to find out about his capture and convictions. Following up on the internet - Joe Died in 1996 after suffering an epileptic fit. Having spent almost all of his "prison time" in a mental hospital. The main thrust of the authors story (other than telling what he did and what he thought) was the fact that he was found sane at the time of trial, whereas there was plenty of evidence before and after the murders that he was "very psychotic"
Having read accounts of the last murder on the internet - I feel that he manipulated the author somewhat to get a more sympathetic response from her. This is highlighted in a letter he sent her which is published in the book and made my skin crawl as I read it.
Compelling but very unpleasant to read. I wouldn't tell anyone else to read it. Reviewed by Mr Lidbud ( )