A review by saucydoorhandles
Talking with Psychopaths and Savages: A Journey into the Evil Mind by Christopher Berry-Dee

1.0

Very disjointed and very surface level. He barely touches upon the tragedies that happened. He just skims and gives the basics. He talks more about gun control than the killers and their victims. We never got into their heads. He said he has personally talked to a few of them, yet you'll never know what happened in those meetings so it's not really talking with psychopaths is it? To do that, you actually have to have a conversation with them. You won't learn anything at all. He barely goes into the crimes, nor the killer themselves nor the victims, so what is the point if you're not going to focus on atleast one of these?

Also, the writer can be very grating at times. He seems to think he's god like in understanding psychopaths. Unless you have telepathy, you cannot know what goes on in someones mind. A lot of the time, psychology is just an educated guess based on behaviour but even then, bias can play a huge role and just because someone throws a label on you, it doesn't mean it's true. (e.g. Autistic women getting a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder when really, they were actually autistic.) Let's dial down the ego when we have the power to put life changing labels on people.

I don't get the point of this book. He constantly references his other books and this book doesn't add anything new to the conversation. It says very little and is repetitive. He talks a lotta smack, but he is all talk, no walk.