Please be careful purchasing this book, and others by the same author..

If I could give this book and 'the new evil' a 0 rating I would.
I'm not a sensitive flower by any means, but these books are gratuitous in the extreme.
Prolonged description of torture and abuse, which seemed unnecessarily graphic, for the reader.
Two points, you cannot 'unsee' and you cannot 'unhear'. In some of these stories, ie... 'A child being abused, using shoe polish as a 'lubricant' felt truly abusive. I became the Voyeur and the victim through listening to the narrative. Also I paid for this! I lined the authors pockets to recant this nightmare. I feel violated, and I won't buy his books again. Ever. Also if I can prevent another unsuspecting soul from lining the authors pockets with 'blood money' then hopefully I've atoned for buying these dreadful book in the first place. For your own mental health Avoid!

9 people found this helpful

No doubt this will be referenced as a seminal work

This was an absolutely fascinating and very accessible exploration of what constitutes "evil" as defined within the narrow boundaries outlined by society and the law (primarily around the American jurisdiction). I am not a clinical or forensic psychologist so I cannot attest to how up-to-date or relevant some of the theories are when compared to today's criminal landscape but the book tends to postulate upon the psychology of evil rather than try to faultlessly define it's meaning. I found the narration to be excellent; some of the descriptions in this book are extremely (I mean no-holds-barred) graphic - they have to be to necessitate the depravity of the crimes - and the narrator does an excellent job of keeping a measured pace throughout the more clinical parts of the book as well as when the crimes themselves are being narrated. This was completely riveting; anyone interested in the forensic psychology field or true crime genre should give this book a spin.

5 people found this helpful

Is this a joke?

There are plenty of issues with this offering, but the primary one is that the research is poor, and in some cases entirely absent. Apparently the Dunblane massacre happened in 1966. Yeah, only 30 years out there. Better research on the Moors murders; only 20 years separates claim from fact. I stopped listening after five hours but in that time there were numerous other errors and frank absurdities, such as the lunatic assertion that hate crimes are exclusively committed by males, so much so I didn't see the point in continuing.

I had expected this book to give some incisive reasoning as to the nature of evil, e.g. postulating evil in terms of biological and social entropy. What became clear in the first 20 minutes is that the author is completely out of his depth. All he has come up with so far is a list of a dozen or so 'categories' that has little if anything to do with topic of the book. Maybe in later chapters he gets his act together and postulates a theory on what evil actually is, and stops simply summarising one poorly researched case after another and concluding, "So that category 5," or "That's category 12," but I can't bear to listen to any more.

3 people found this helpful

Dark but truly fascinating, a macabre masterpiece.

A recent interest in studying the ‘dark tetrad’ and the ‘abnormal psychologies’ of sociopaths and psychopaths lead me to this book- and what a journey. The numerous case studies are not for the faint hearted, some of the details are truly horrific. I love the references to Dantes’s inferno and would have like more of this. I would have also like some more of the psychoanalytic views of various real cases as they are most interesting. These points should not detract from what an epic work this book is, expertly read, the delivery is very easy to listen to for long periods, even if the subject matter is far from easy. An excellent book.

2 people found this helpful

Interesting case studies

Full of interesting criminal case studies, good for those interested in forensic psychology or criminology.

2 people found this helpful

The Anatomy Of Evil

Straight forward detailed analysis of the motivation behind crimes, criminals, and thieir behaviours!!! Evil - from the inside-out!?

1 person found this helpful

Intellectual and Engaging

This book discusses some interesting theories, preconceptions and case studies. It was an excellent book but not for the faint hearted. If your interested learning about evil then this is the book but it can a bit disturbing so be prepared.

1 person found this helpful

Extremely interesting. Not gory.

Saw a review saying it was horrifically gory and distasteful. Not at all. For anyone who had read/watched/listened to much true crime, this won’t be too shocking. Yes there are some awful parts but it is not dwelled in at length. That reviewer obviously did not read the book properly either because what they claimed was gory wasn’t even what was written either.

spine tingling

This book is not for the faint hearted. it isn't that it's salacious it its descriptions of heinous crimes, more that the author poses the question of the choices made by involved individuals. Not just the offender but their care givers and wider society. A must read for anyone interested in psychology or criminology.

Interesting topic well presented

It's an interesting subject, evaluating evil, and placing the most notorious killers of our time on a scale of one to twenty two. twenty two being the most evil.