This is the seminal work on the anthropology and sociology of serial killing. I read it in conjunction with an NFB documentary film “The Man Who Studies Murder”, which puts a face to the voice of the book. Leyton is a country boy from small-town Saskatchewan (who looks and sounds distinctly Metis, though I can’t say for sure that he is) and now lives in Newfoundland. Newfoundland is rural, poor by North American standards, and virtually every house has a gun. Economically, it’s the Canadian equivalent of Arkansas. But it has one of the lowest murder rates in the world. In the film, Leyton discusses the reasons why he considers cultural choices and mores the principal determinant of murder rates and styles of murder, often using his home as a laboratory.
The book on serial and mass killers, dealing with the “classic” cases, attempts to get beyond the kind of unverifiable psychiatric speculations that dominated the issue before Leyton came on the scene. As he demonstrates, psychiatry has been of little use in understanding the phenomenon. He shows the fundamental similarities in most serial killings, and does his best to deflate the nonsense generated by Thomas Harris’s “Hannibal Lecter” fantasies. Serial killers are invariably pathetic, ineffective losers, usually pretty dumb.…. never the suave supergeniuses of fiction. Leyton rejects biological and psychiatric explanations in favour of a cultural one, and argues it persuasively. He may not have the last word on this issue, but his opinions are more worth reading than most. He is also a witty and entertaining writer ― and from the evidence of the film, has the same qualities in person.
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