For Heaven's Sake Catch Me Before I Kill More I Cannot Control Myself

There it was, on a desk in a neat stack: twenty oversized hardcover books, each marked at a tolerable $2.00.  Crimes and Punishment: A Pictorial Encyclopedia of Aberrant Behavior.  I got the set for half-price.

For a true crime junkie like myself, this set that delves into the likes of Jack the Ripper, zombies, serial killers, con men and the like was absolute porn.  Photos and drawings (many of them rare) galore, and a small font ensured that this provide hours of "entertainment." 

BPC Publishing Limited is the publisher, and the advisory editorial board includes the likes of Colin Wilson, H. Montgomery Hyde and Nigel Morland. 

I grabbed volume 20 off my shelf to get some information and turned to the section "Vice Breaker."  It opens with a full page photo of W. T.  Stead and this, "In staid Victorian London a double standard of morals existed.  Child prostitution was legal.  In changing the law, W. T. Stead suffered jail."  Throughout the book are crime scene photos (like the one above), photos of notes from Jack the Ripper, comparison photos of art forgeries, great photos of Maud Allen and the man who accused her of being the head of a "Cult of Clitoris," the man who was licensed to kill KGB members, Joseph Weil (the Yellow Kid) and more.  That's just in one volume!  There are 20 of these!  Amazing and unbelievable.

I talk to quite a few true crime fans who don't even know this set (which came out between 1973-1974) even exists.  I've never seen it in a store since, either, though it can be found online. 

Though it crams a lot in, and is not as in-depth as a single subject book would be, it still has a surprising amount of information, so you're bound to run into something you never knew about before.  Simply amazing.



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Cult Killers -- A Frenzied Bloodbath of Exploitation!!!!!!!

Everything about Cult Killers screams exploitation true crime.  From the blurb on the book ("Their secret rituals always end in death!") to the fact that the cases are taken from "the files of True Detective magazine."  All of it has a ring of sensationalism to it.  Still not convinced?  Here are some of the pieces: "Occult Crime: Terror for the Innocents!," "Satanist Offered a Human Sacrifice," "'Skinheads' 'Boot Party' 'Bloodbath!,'" and my favorite, "Six Lovely Girls for Satan's Flesh Eaters!"

Satan's Flesh Eaters would be a great name for a band.

I'm actually rather picky when it comes to true crime books.  I do, however, have a soft spot for the trash Pinnacle used to print (and perhaps still does).  This book was originally published in 1984, which is when I bought it.  Even then I knew skinheads weren't a cult, but that didn't stop editor Rose G. Mandelsberg from including them.  (Maybe it had something to do with her last name.)

I read this book once and promptly filed it away.  Not for research purposes, but for laughs.  I figured there would be a time when I'd want to crack open its pages again and be stunned by Satanists throwing babies under trains or something.  If I sold it, I figured it would be hard to find again, too, as they quickies have a way of disappearing.

So it sits on my shelf, with a host of others, waiting to be reread.  That is ... if the Satanic skinheads don't get me first.