num_pages: 432
description: From the author of Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters comes an in-depth examination of sexual serial killers throughout human history how they evolved and why we are drawn to their horrifying crimes.Before the term was coined in 1981 there were no serial killers. There were only monsters--killers society first understood as werewolves vampires ghouls and witches or later Hitchcockian psychos.In Sons of Cain--a book that fills the gap between dry academic studies and sensationalized true crime--investigative historian Peter Vronsky examines our understanding of serial killing from its prehistoric anthropological evolutionary dimensions in the pre-civilization era (c. 15000 BC) to today. Delving further back into human history and deeper into the human psyche than Serial Killers--Vronsky's 2004 book which has been called the definitive history of the phenomenon of serial murder--he focuses strictly on sexual serial killers: thrill killers who engage in murder rape torture cannibalism and necrophilia as opposed to for-profit serial killers including hit men or political serial killers like terrorists or genocidal murderers.These sexual serial killers differ from all other serial killers in their motives and their foundations. They are uniquely human and--as popular culture has demonstrated--uniquely fascinating.
language: English
title: Sons of Cain: A History of Serial Killers from the Stone Age to the Present
publisher: Berkley