Kitty Horror

I have previously enjoyed other crime books from Harold Schechter, I found 'Deviant' and 'Bestial' to be fascinating reads that gave a lot of background on the subjects.

This encyclopedia falls far short of his other work, the main reason being the format in which the information is given. I expected an A-Z of serial killers by name not by headings such 'ads', 'partners' or 'x-rated'. This made the read very difficult to engage with as Schechter trots out the same information pertaining to the killer every time he ties them to the sub heading. In some cases the same info is given up to 6 or 7 times, this quickly become irritating and every time I came across it, it made me want to DNF. The effects are jarring and turn what could have been an interesting read into a snoozefest. There was some interesting info included but it wasn't enough to lift the rating out of 2*.

The art in the book is also pretty pathetic, I'm not sure why the author didn't use pics of the subjects instead of tacky memorabilia cards or 'art'. You won't find anything in this book that you can't find on the web.

Not recommended.

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