One begins the book by Stéphane Bourgoin explaining the reason for his approach, then, then, the book is divided into several chapters, each narrating the adventures of a serial killer. We start also very strong, with the Vampire of Düsseldorf, Peter Kurten. And we follow the deadly progression of it, from 1929, to stop in 1931, until his execution on July 2. Over a hundred pages, we have the minutes of Kurten, confessing his crimes, and victims who survived the horror. Then we witness his arrest at his trial, and his psychological evaluation, which literally plunges us into a horror rarely as violent, shocking and terrifying at once. We learn, with the same words of Kurten, he was zoophile, psycho, cannibalistic tendencies in sometimes; he drank at least twice the blood of his victims. He was also a pyromaniac, and confessed to having enjoyed in with a rush of blood; yet he was married with a woman he loved and who loved him and had sexual activity, psychotic, but also quite regular, and dare I say it, normal. What is most striking is also the discovery of his sadistic perversion; perversion that is not as obvious to the minutes first. For example, twice, it details the murder of a little girl, murder whose motive does not appear to be sexual at first, then admitted he had enjoyed when he had stabbed and therefore n had not seen the interest to rape her. We also discover his childhood, marked by violence, alcohol, poverty, theft, prison - he spent half of his life, 24 years in prison - and by the evil. Finally, we have an analysis of Bourgoin, who quite rightly explains what a serial killer, and how to catch them. Then, also, there are many references to books on the matter, and also to films inspired by the case, such as the legendary M Le Maudit, Fritz Lang, under Peter Kurten.
I strongly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about serial killers, their lifestyle, their psyche. However, caution, because violence scenes described is sometimes so excruciating that it could disrupt. Prudence, therefore.
