Shelves: arc-or-review, books-i-own, crime-thriller-mystery, historical, let-down, mental-health, non-fiction, not-for-me, read-in-2020, to-be-reviewed
Description via Goodreads:
Over his 30-year police and forensic psychology career, Dr Kris Mohandie has come face-to-face with kidnappers, serial killers, stalkers, and terrorists.
With his expertise and insight, Dr Mohandie analyses and evaluates the thought processes that motivate the most dangerous people who have ever walked among us.
This is the first-hand account of his work, covering shocking cases like the 'Angel of Death' serial killer, racist serial assassin Joseph Paul Franklin, and even the O.J. Simpson case.
Learn shocking new revelations about hostage takers, serial killers, mass murderers, violent 'true-believers', terrorists, and some of the worst predators on the planet.
I initially picked up 'Born Killers?' as it is relatively short and due to the interesting subject matter, I thought it would be a compelling, quick read. Unfortunately, I was let down by this book and it took me a lot longer to read than I hoped. Despite my likely unhealthy obsession with true crime and the psychology behind it, this book was unfortunately a disappointment.
This book should have grabbed my attention and kept me wanting to read on but I found it quite a chore to get through. The book is full of short chapters on all sorts of criminals - from serial killers and stalkers to terrorists and kidnappers. Mohandie covers a wide range of criminals in a short amount of writing yet somehow, the writing still felt laborious to read. Whilst I had heard of most of the cases and criminals mentioned in the book (most are well known), I think this would be a good introduction to true crime for anyone who is interested in the subject and the book does give a good starting point (with references) for those who want to investigate further.
Regrettably, I didn't enjoy the tone of the author throughout this book - there was a sense of pretension and a major lack of empathy - particularly for a professional. This really downgraded the book for me. Throughout, there are numerous mentions of American culture, politics and, in particular, gun laws. I appreciate that politics are very important and the gun laws do have an impact on the crimes but I felt as though Mohandie's personal views and commentary often went off on a tangent, distracting from the psychology of the crimes - it became very tiresome.
Overall, unfortunately I can't say that I enjoyed this book. I did find the author's insights about psychological deception interesting as well as the short section on mass killers, but despite this - the main word I would use to describe this book is 'boring'. I can see the value of the informative content for those who would like a basic insight into several crimes but for me, this book is not something I'd recommend reading for an enjoyable pastime.
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