Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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39 of 43 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fatally flawed, brutally honest and utterly compelling., 6 Dec 2001
By A Customer
The predictable media outrage surrounding publication of this book threatens to do every serious reader a great disservice. Far from an 'autobiography' of any description (Brady barely even alludes to his own crimes other than in the abstract), this reads more like a philosophical tract, albeit with the serial killer at its centre. The bitterness and often near-paranoia suffusing almost every page might be inevitable, but is also a real shame; many of Brady's insights are searingly brilliant, as is a good deal of the writing. Here is an author not driven by profit or the desire to advance a literary career - Brady seems to be obeying a psychological and intellectual imperative. The results are quite extraordinary.
The passion and urgency with which Brady writes and his necessarily idiosynchratic vantage point make this a unique document. He is lucid and articulate throughout, having clearly made good use of his prison library card in the thirty five years since his incarceration in what he describes as the 'garbage can'.
Whatever you think of Brady and his ruthless creed, it's difficult to simply dismiss what appears to be his central if not his only attack on humanity: man's pitiful failure to establish an individual morality. Many of his views echo Nietzsche; Brady talks at length about the herd mentality and the weakness of self-delusion prevalent in our society. Indeed, he takes full advantage throughout of the license to provoke that his hopeless position obviously gives him.
No matter what your view on Brady's beliefs, you should at least make your own mind up about this admirable and powerful dissection of mankind's most destructive impulses; some of the most uncomfortable journeys are also the most rewarding.
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32 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating, 18 Jan 2002
By A Customer
I immediately bought this book the day it was released. As an amateur criminal psychologist this book was a must see and, to be honest, it was a little bit of both a let down and surprise.
The first part of the book is mainly centered on Brady and his attitudes towards both society and the authorities. He tends to drone on about how corrupt and hypocritical society and the law is and he also tends to ridicule the general public, whom he considers to be the largely uneducated masses. It is a little dull and pointless to say the least.
However, in the second part of his book, Brady becomes the criminal psychologist, analysing and explaining past serial killers in both the United Kingdom and the United States, and this is the fascinating part. Brady analyses and explains their actions in a most professional and objective manner. This is, without a shadow of a doubt, the most fascinating analysis there is. This book is a must purchase for all those interested in the criminal mind and it is written by a man who knows exactly what he is talking about.
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45 of 53 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Well written, yes, illuminating? Pass, 10 Oct 2003
By A Customer
Brady's book throws up a number of contradictions, mostly problematic. The first seven chapters seem to be Brady's attempt at clarifying his own philosophy and outlook, especially regarding 'moral relativism'. Unsurprisingly, his argument mostly centres around the 'all human beings are animals and capable of acts of savagery' schtick. While not a particularly original subject, Brady does write very passionately, in a witty and rhythmic style, and comes across as both articulate and well-versed in his proposals - at times I even forgot that the 'monstrous' Brady we see depicted in the tabloids was the actual author. Yes, the serial killer is derided as a twisted, sick individual, mainly for his working class status, whereas heads of government, banks, judges, senior police chiefs and multinational corporations are free to start wars, oppress social minorities, destroy the environment and kill their enemies at will, whilst justifying their work as 'being in the public interest' or 'just business, nothing personal'. If Brady is trying (and I suspect he is, to an extent) to present some sort of class overtones to his self-justifications (ie- the rich screw over the poor so therefore the poor have a right to lash back through crime), this direction is bound to fail miserably. Brady and Hindley murdered working class children and teenagers. The remaining chapters are supposedly dedicated to psychological profiles of key UK and US serial killers. I found it personally ironic that, at the start of the book, Brady attacks those crime writers and media hacks who have covered this subject for 'sensationalising' the crimes and criminals they purport to despise, as his own accounts seemed to gravitate this way as well. Starting off well with some interesting observations on John Wayne Gacy, Peter Sutcliffe and Graham Young, Brady soon descends into the kind of sensational story-telling he claims to loathe. I got quite bored by the time I'd finished the chapter on Richard Ramirez, and began to skim through the rest of the killers, wondering when Brady would hit me with something I hadn't read before in myriad forms. Ultimately, Brady's argument that serial killers refuse to be grey blobs on the canvas of life, and that their 'will to power' is comparable to wild streaks of colour, a celebration of life through art, is bankrupt. Plenty of people reject humdrum lives and do their own thing, without the need to enslave or control others. Nor do their lives necessarily end up being wasted in a solitary cell. Brady is incapable of grasping the fact that he has fulfilled a social role just as much as the 9-5 bank clerk and the ruthless media hack, proudly displaying his 'outsider' uniform as if it meant he had escaped the 'common herd' for good. Instead, it becomes clear that despite his grandiose declarations, Brady himself has been played by the very game he intended to rig for his own pleasure.
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