Reviews tagging 'Stalking'

The Man from the Train: The Solving of a Century-Old Serial Killer Mystery by Bill James, Rachel McCarthy James

6 reviews

librarymouse's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

3.0

This book is very dense and the organization makes the information and names harder to follow across chapters and years. Still, it's interesting to get a glimpse into the author's research processes and they make a good case for the man they believe to be the killer and what they believe to be his fate.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Sexual content, Racial slurs, Child death, Sexual assault, Body horror, Murder, Pedophilia, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Misogyny, Mental illness, Stalking, Classism, Hate crime, Blood, Gore, Grief, Child abuse, Death, and Gun violence

Minor: Drug use, Domestic abuse, War, Alcohol, and Animal cruelty

juliana18's review against another edition

dark emotional funny informative mysterious sad tense medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Racism, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, and Blood

Moderate: Stalking, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Ableism, and Police brutality

literaryliz's review against another edition

challenging dark informative sad tense slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Stalking, Violence, Murder, Pedophilia, Racial slurs, Blood, Death, and Gore

msradiosilence's review against another edition

dark funny informative mysterious sad slow-paced

1.5

Tldr; the “good” of this book (the authors playing to their strengths, etc) did very little to outweigh the bad (the authors being blind to their own weaknesses, and being racist, etc.) 

Read my full review at: https://www.rainyreader.com/single-post/the-man-from-the-train

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Blood, Child death, Death, Sexual assault, Stalking, Body horror, Gore, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Pedophilia, and Racism

hanarama's review against another edition

challenging dark informative slow-paced

3.25

The Good:
• Conversational tone
• Compelling

The Bad:
• Circumstantial
• Large volume of cases

You Might Like This if You Like:
• True crime podcasts like Casefiles. 
• True crime documentaries. 

I did enjoy reading this book. The light and conversational tone makes the individual chapters easy to follow. It feels more like listening to a friend tell you about something they've just learned rather than reading book. And I think that is a large part of why the evidence and theory presented feels so compelling. The authors are very convincing in their argument. 

Despite this though, a large amount of what they present feels entirely like circumstantial conjecture. Especially after they have named their suspect. 

And I suspect that this has to do with the sheer number of crimes that they describe over the course of the book. So many that it becomes difficult to remember them all. And in the end, only about 1/3 are ascribed with full confidence to the Man from the Train. I would have liked for these cases to be examined more in depth and left those more questionable cases to side notes. I feel like it may have allowed for the theory to feel more concrete. 

In the end, I do feel convinced by the argument that a train-riding killer was probably behind some of these crimes. However, I am unconvinced of the sheer scale of violence committed as well as if the suspect presented makes total sense

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Violence, Stalking, Sexual violence, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, and Blood

aconfundityofcrows's review against another edition

challenging dark informative mysterious tense slow-paced

5.0

Woah so fascinating and they figured it out too. Now we just need a German speaker to sift through old newspaper records to figure out if he committed any more in Germany or Austria.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Racism, and Murder

Moderate: Body shaming, Pedophilia, Xenophobia, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Stalking, Gun violence, Fire/Fire injury, Racial slurs, Police brutality, Hate crime, Cursing, and Religious bigotry

Minor: Physical abuse, Infidelity, Incest, Domestic abuse, Chronic illness, Toxic relationship, and Toxic friendship