A review by taylorc19
Talking with Psychopaths and Savages: A Journey into the Evil Mind by Christopher Berry-Dee

challenging dark informative reflective slow-paced

3.25

I completely understand a lot of the criticism that this book faces. The author often comes off as conceited, arrogant, and grandiose-funnily enough, I found myself making comparisons between the author and the psychopaths that he interviewed. He often droned about how his efforts and investigations led to killers making confessions that the police could never obtain. Don't get me wrong, that is something to be proud of, it just gets rather redundant and eye-roll inducing to constantly read about. However, I also think a lot of the criticism of this book is unwarranted. The author never claims that this is going to be an in-depth summary of every killers case. This book is about the psychology of psychopaths and savages and how their minds work, and how the author used his knowledge of psychology to manipulate these barbaric criminals. I found this book interesting because I've studied psychology, but I can understand that if someone who is simply interested in true-crime picks up this book they might be a bit disappointed. It's definitely a slow read, but I found it interesting and informative. I also appreciate that I didn't know about most of the cases discussed, so I was learning new information instead of hearing about ultra-famous serial killers like Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer. 
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