“Try to touch the past. Try to deal with the past. It’s not real. It’s just a dream.” – Ted Bundy
Last year for Christmas my older brother got me the book ‘The Little Old Lady Who Broke All The Rules‘. This year he got me ‘Serial Killers From The 70s’. I’m not sure how I feel about that situation, but regardless they are both fantastic books. I will let you do whatever you want with this information.
Who Is This Book For?
If you are even the smallest fan of true crime you know that the 70s were prime serial killer territory. My personal favorite story from that time is that of Mary Vincent’s, she isn’t included in this book. But if you don’t know who she is I would highly suggest looking her up.
What Is The Book About?
This book does cover some iconic profiles in crime including Son of Sam, Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy and more. It covers a lot of the details that usually aren’t present in podcasts and other true crime documentation. Such as a specific timeline, number of pieces of evidence used in court, insanity plea mishaps, local newspaper headline battles, etc.
One of my favorite lines in the whole book is in the Gacy chapter. It says that those who were at the execution were singing a rather morbid version of ‘Hello Dolly’. This was something I had never heard of before. As someone who loves that movie, it gave me a good chuckle while reading at midnight on a Wednesday.
Conclusion
My only complaint about the book is that it is rather deceiving. When you look at it you think you are getting a lot more story content than you actually get. Only about 2/3 of the book is the content about serial killers. The other third is an appendix of court documents where the author got the info. The content was interesting nevertheless but I did expect another chapter of but got a slightly confusing court document instead.