The Mammoth Book of True Crime - Softcover

Colin Wilson, renowned criminologist, TV and radio personality, is one of the most popular and respected writers on both criminology and psychology. His many books include The Mammoth Book of True Crime and A plague of Murder. Colin Wilson is the best-selling author of more than 50 books, including The Outsider, The Criminal History of Mankind, A Plague of Murder and many other works of non-fiction and fiction. He lives in Cornwall. Colin Wilson is the best-selling author of more than 60 books on subjects ranging from Jack the Ripper and UFOs to the mysteries of the supernatural and serial killers. He lives in Cornwall. Colin Wilson, renowned criminologist, TV and radio personality, is one of the most popular and respected writers on both criminology and psychology. His many books include The Mammoth Book of True Crime and A Plague of Murder. Damon Wilson is author of several books, most notably The Mammoth Book of Nostradamus.

The prolific Wilson (A Criminal History of Mankind, et al.) offers this compilation of true crime narratives, abbreviated accounts of both famous and lesser-known cases. "Murder interests me," Wilson writes, "because it is the most extreme form of the denial of this human potentiality. Life devaluation has become a commonplace of our century." Wilson analyzes numerous crimes and their perpetrators, ranging from lady-killers to manic messiahs, contemporary and past: " . . . to kill by poison is perhaps the most childish of all criminal acts . . . . Nearly all the famous poisoners have been rather childish personalitiesoften delightful and charming, but fundamentally children determined to get their own way by stealth." In the "Motiveless Murder" chapter, he once again expounds on the importance of science-fiction author A. E. Van Vogt's "right man" theoryviolent men who treat women as slavesas "one of the most important breakthroughs since Sigmund Freud 'discovered' the unconscious." Wilson's now-familiar practice of intertwining throughout a rich array of literary references (Ray Bradbury, James Thurber, James Jones, etc.) only adds to the informed tone of this massive survey, so extensive and worthy a reference that some repetition is not an annoyance. An introduction defines the links between Wilson's fiction and nonfiction.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.