Signature Killers
Signature Killersis a peculiar yet valuable book--repetitious, brilliant, turgid, passionate, and indispensable for understanding serial killers. Those who persevere through the prolix writing style will be rewarded by compelling insights into the psychological needs, and evolution over time, of a specific type of murderer, one whose key characteristic is not so much that he killsmultiplepeople, but that he leaves asignaturebehind at every crime scene. Robert Keppel knows what he's talking about: He's been involved in more than 2,000 murder investigations, including 50 high-profile serial cases. The topics he covers in exhaustive and harrowing detail (Signature Killersis not for the faint of heart) include "the essence of torture," "the anger-retaliation signature," "the picquerism signature," "the psychological imprint of a sadist," "the retaliation-to-excitation continuum," and why Jeffrey Dahmer is "the black hole at the end of the continuum."