Today it’s my turn on the blog tour for Talking With Psychopaths And Savages: A Journey Into The Evil Mind. My review is written with thanks to Tracy Fenton for inviting me on the tour and to the publisher for my copy of the book.

Blurb:

In Talking With Psychopaths, bestselling author and criminologist Christopher Berry-Dee takes readers deep inside the dark minds of some of the most pitiless and dangerous people alive.

Having spent years interviewing imprisoned criminals – including notorious serial killers – he discovered that the lack of remorse these people showed was in many ways even more terrifying than the crimes they had committed. Yet in the course of these conversations, the author also had the chance to interview his subjects’ psychiatrists and, in doing so, uncovered a terrible truth: a monster can be hidden behind a friendly face.

Some of these experts, he found, proved to have more in common with their patients than he would ever have expected. This book examines horrific crimes committed by some of the most remorseless and merciless people ever to have lived. If it reveals a mindset wholly alien to most people, it also, shockingly, demonstrates that some of the people who treat these psychopaths have their own demons.

This chilling study of darkest of criminal minds will inevitably shift the reader’s view of psychopaths, and in doing so, reveals that horror can be much closer to us than we think…

Review:

True crime is something that I find absolutely fascinating and although I’ve watched a lot of TV programmes in the genre, it’s not something that has often found its way into my reading. I felt that was something I should change so I appreciate the opportunity to read Talking With Psychopaths: A Journey Into The Evil Mind now. Christopher Berry-Dee clearly has a lot of experience working in this field and its fascinating to read about his exchanges with some of the world’s most dangerous criminals and his insight into their mindset.

There are some sections of Talking With Psychopaths: A Journey Into The Evil Mind that are highly scientific; however, for the most part, Christopher Berry-Dee writes in a really accessible way so that people like me who are relatively new to the genre are able to understand the processes he uses. I appreciate that the author chose to include cases from outside the UK, as this brought to my attention people with whom I was not previously familiar.

Talking With Psychopaths: A Journey Into The Evil Mind is not an easy book to read. Most of the crimes that are included in this book are extremely violent and the author describes them in graphic detail. However, I am glad I was able to continue reading as I appreciated the opportunity to learn something new, even about cases such as Harold Shipman, which I remember clearly. 

This author has an extensive back catalogue and I look forward to reading his accounts of other aspects of his work.

Talking With Psychopaths And Savages: A Journey Into The Evil Mind is available from Amazon.

You can follow the rest of the blog tour here: