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RR 2011/314 Serial Killers: Murder without Mercy Nigel Blundell Wharncliffe Local History Barnsley 2010 176 pp. ISBN 978 1 84563119 6 £16.99
Keyword Murder
Review DOI 10.1108/09504121111168514
I do not know how many books have been written on murders and murderers but it must run into thousands as it is a subject which continues to fascinate. Serial Killers: Murder Without Mercy covers 31 serial killers in 28 chapters (several of the killers worked in pairs).
The eldest serial killers in the book are William Burke and William Hare the infamous body snatchers of the 1820s who supplied the medical profession with corpses for anatomical dissection. After delivering the first murdered corpse to Dr Robert Knox they were sent on their way with the encouraging message "we'll be glad to see you again, gentlemen, when you have another to dispose of". Another from the nineteenth century is Dr William Palmer, "Prince of Poisoners", who was hanged in the mid 1800s (the last entry in the book - they are not in chronological order), and had 25,000 prospective spectators,...