Review: "How can this type of action be carried out by a human being?"
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 09 21, 2012
For this reader, the incidents that took place on Norway's the island of Utya and at the government buildings in Oslo, in Norway in July 2011 came as a shock, as it did for much of the world. Many of us read the news reports on the 'Net, which for me were primarily coming in English from publications in the UK. That's where I first encountered the reporting of freelance journalist Richard Orange.In his bookThe Mind of a Madman: Norway's struggle to understand Anders Breivik, released here as a Kindle Single, the author has presented us with a surprising look into the mind of mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik, starting from when he first surfaced at Utya on that horrific July day in his wetsuit and began his bloodbath. This was to become the biggest peacetime massacre ever carried out by a single gunman.The author takes us into a largely chronological look at Anders Behring Breivik, where the Norwegian media began reporting the attack on Utya, even before the police arrived. Then the reports began that the murderer wasn't an Islamic terrorist, a member of the jihadi group called Ansar al-Jihad al-Alami, as had been conveyed earlier in the day: he was a blond, blue-eyed Norwegian.Days before the attacks, Breivik had anonymously sent a declaration document via email to over 1,000 addresses about 90 minutes before the bomb blast in Oslo, and one of the recipients a copy of it on an Internet forum, where it went viral within hours. This 1500-page manifesto, which carried the title "2083: A European Declaration of Independence," was signed Andrew Berwick, a pseudonym for Anders Breivik. He had included a thorough biography, a description of the Knights Templar and much more. Much of his manifesto contained reused and plagiarized material from extreme anti-Islamic blogs and parts of the "Unabomber Manifesto," where he replaced the word "leftists" with "cultural Marxists."Two days before the attack, Breivik had posted a profile on Facebook, and on it were the portraits from the manifesto, showing a blond man dressed in full Masonic regalia, in a dinner jacket and in a polo shirt. He claimed to be the Commander of Knights Templar Norway.Author Richard Orange introduces us to Geir Lippestad, the 48-year-old Oslo lawyer who Breivik had personally requested represent him, and Inga Bejer Engh, a lawyer working at the Oslo's District Prosecutor's Office. The author does this skillfully by describing where these lead characters and others were and what they were doing when each first heard about Breivik's atrocious actions.In this concise 108-page Kindle edition, author Orange deftly demonstrates his skills as a journalist by reporting the events leading up to the trial of Anders Breivik, along with the paradoxes faced by the judges and the entire Norwegian legal system during the 10-week trial that followed. Should this man, this monster who performed the mass murders, be declared insane, "as his strange claims to be a leader of the Knights Templar suggested he might be," or should he be judged a cold-blooded terrorist?The paradox had to do with the judicial system itself. Norwegian law was clear: if found sane, Breivik could be given the maximum sentence of 21 years. But if a paranoid schizophrenia diagnosis was to prevail, then a criminal could be sentenced to psychiatric treatment. In that case, if Breivik's psychological condition improved, he could be back on the streets within four years.Much to his credit, Richard Orange has refrained from bombastic editorializing inThe Mind of a Madmanand has instead chosen to use his own court reporting, the trial transcripts, police interviews and the court psychiatric reports to offer us the best English language interpretation that this reader has found. This is a fast and highly recommended read.9/21/2012