Disappointing.
I must be the unusual resident of Canada; I'm uninterested in most of what happens in the land that lies mostly just to the south of this one. When I saw that Leyton is Canadian, working in a Canadian university, I jumped to the conclusion that his discussion would range farther than the confines of the United States. Beyond that, I did not expect to read about 300 pages of descriptions of crimes larded with his moral condemnations of the perpetrators and rehashed pop psych followed by a meagre 100 pages or so of lite analysis.
Dreary reading.

Although this book is valuable for its analysis of some not-all-that-famous multiple murderers (Carl Panzram and Charles Starkweather for example), I found its argument to be complete... well... bull. The author basically said serial and mass murderers were striking back against the economic and social hierarchies in American society by their choice of victims, that the killers were attacking the middle class which they had been unable to enter themselves.

I'm sure that can be considered a partial explanation for some multiple murderers' behavior, but it certainly isn't everything, and I thought the author disregarded a lot of evidence that did not fit his theory. I mean, to begin with, not all serial killers are poor or low-class; some are born into wealth (Charles Ng) or become wealthy through their own efforts (John Wayne Gacy made a great living as a contractor for awhile; ditto Christopher Wilder) and kept killing the whole time.

The reader should also be aware that this is much more an anthropology book than true crime (the author is an anthropologist after all). If you're looking for gore, watch a slasher film. If you're looking for in depth personal stories about the killers or victims, go read Ann Rule. This is an academic kind of book -- not a bad book at all, but not as good as it could have been, and not what it was presented as. ( )

Thanks to the problems with amazon details of this edition were lost. I do have a copy but it is in one of the boxes in my house somewhere. I did find the cover on my hard disk. Now I need to figure out how many pages. I remember it was a small book.Anyone? Otherwise I will just guess a number till I find my book. I hate seeing 0 pages.