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Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant.
Review: Absolutely invigorating book. The methodical thinking of Willard Gaylin is simply brilliant. Everything is clear. An amazing read!
Rating: 
Summary: Poignantly haunting.
Review: This is one of those rare books that, for better or worse, keeps me under its daunting yoke. It's gory depiction of the murder of Bonnie Garland, a 1970s Yale undergraduate, and of the mindset of her murderer, a fellow student, is breathtaking in an eerie, dreadful sort of way. When I read this book about four years ago, the hairs on my arms stood straight up. When I think about this book today, my Pavlovian hairs march in step. Giving me a glimpse of the mind of a killer is what I liked about this book. What I didn't like, and what the second half of this book concerns itself with, is the psychological analysis of why the killer did what he did. This was the bane of an otherwise great book. The first half of the book was written in a reporter-like, just-the-facts-ma'am style. I liked that. Part of the joy of the book for me was to figure out how the killer thought, and to extrapolate his motive(s) for the crime. The author's Mickey-mouse psychological analysis of the killer's motives in the second half of the book was amateurish at best, and to my reckoning, just plain wrong. In any event, I couldn't stop reading the book and the pitfalls of its second half weren't so bad as to destroy the enjoyment I gained from the first half. Personally, however, I would just read the first half and leave it at that. One important note: my enjoyment of this book was purely on an intellectual level -- in trying to answer the question "why do killers kill." However, on an emotional level, this book was nauseating and, quite frankly, sick. I often had to put the book down and wonder (1) how could someone commit such a heinous act and (2) how could somebody write a book about it in such a cool-headed, detached fashion? I'm not sure if I'm better for having read it or if I would have been better off having left my copy without a reader. I'm sure the answer rests somewhere in the middle, but if you're especially squeamish, you'd be better off not buying this book. If you've ever lost a loved one to violent crime, it's probably not the book for you. And if you're the vigilante type, this is definitely not the book for you: you'll probably find yourself wanting to take care these sick-headed people yourself.
Rating:
Summary: One of the great books on criminal justice
Review: Willard Gaylin is a gifted writer who is also a psychiatrist with long years of practice. The book is about an awful murder, but more than that it's about the inability of institutions of society -- Yale, and the criminal justice system -- to deal effectively with immorality and cruelty. The murder is the lens through which Gaylin brings social, moral and psychiatric issues into focus. Twenty years after I first read this book it remains vivid in my mind.
Rating:
Summary: One of the great books on criminal justice
Review: Willard Gaylin is a gifted writer who is also a psychiatrist with long years of practice. The book is about an awful murder, but more than that it's about the inability of institutions of society -- Yale, and the criminal justice system -- to deal effectively with immorality and cruelty. The murder is the lens through which Gaylin brings social, moral and psychiatric issues into focus. Twenty years after I first read this book it remains vivid in my mind.
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