218 reviews for:

Talking with Psychopaths and Savages Mass Murderers and Spree Killers

Christopher Berry-Dee, Christopher Berry-Dee

2.71 AVERAGE

gemgem44's review against another edition

2.0

informative slow-paced

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Child death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Blood, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis

bexlrose's review against another edition

---

This book is really really interesting. So much so that after finishing it just immediately picked up the previous book by Berry-Dee on the same subject. HOWEVER the author is really up his own arse! It's so bloody annoying. He's always putting down psychologists and saying how great he is because he doesn't just study psychopaths, he actually goes and meets them. It's full of asides of how excellently he handled difficult situations and how unintimidated he is by these killers even though they could kill him in a second because he had their handcuffs removed because he is so brave and clever.

Really annoying tone of what is essentially an incredibly interesting book. So I'm not going to rate it because I don't want to massage the author's ego.

taylorc19's review against another edition

3.25

challenging dark informative reflective slow-paced

---

I completely understand a lot of the criticism that this book faces. The author often comes off as conceited, arrogant, and grandiose-funnily enough, I found myself making comparisons between the author and the psychopaths that he interviewed. He often droned about how his efforts and investigations led to killers making confessions that the police could never obtain. Don't get me wrong, that is something to be proud of, it just gets rather redundant and eye-roll inducing to constantly read about. However, I also think a lot of the criticism of this book is unwarranted. The author never claims that this is going to be an in-depth summary of every killers case. This book is about the psychology of psychopaths and savages and how their minds work, and how the author used his knowledge of psychology to manipulate these barbaric criminals. I found this book interesting because I've studied psychology, but I can understand that if someone who is simply interested in true-crime picks up this book they might be a bit disappointed. It's definitely a slow read, but I found it interesting and informative. I also appreciate that I didn't know about most of the cases discussed, so I was learning new information instead of hearing about ultra-famous serial killers like Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child death, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Stalking, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Alcohol, Sexual harassment

hollietoftx's review against another edition

2.0

---

I listened to this on audio. Not necessarily the best exploration of psychopaths, I've read better. Still enjoyed listening though.

nursingthepages's review against another edition

1.0

medium-paced

celtic67's review against another edition

1.0

---

This was disappointing. Seemed to be a hotchpotch of forgotten articles, previously published articles and self praise. Like a TV programme your looking forward to and which turns out to be an amalgamation of you've seen before.

rootastic's review against another edition

2.0

informative slow-paced

ficsandflix's review against another edition

3.0

challenging dark informative mysterious sad fast-paced

starnighte's review against another edition

3.0

dark informative reflective fast-paced

gth's review against another edition

2.75

dark informative medium-paced