Serial Killers Decoded

A road map with 180 red circles. Five passports, one smiling face. A nurse applying makeup to a severed head.

Ten of history's most disturbing serial killers sat down and talked. Almost everything they said was a lie. The truth leaked through anyway.

Serial Killers Decoded takes you inside the minds of ten murderers who confessed, boasted, wept and performed: Aileen Wuornos, the highway killer the world couldn't decide was monster or victim. Kenneth McDuff, the only man in American history freed from death row who killed his way back onto it. Henry Lee Lucas, who confessed to 600 murders while police queued to believe him. Ronald "Butch" DeFeo, whose slaughter of his family was buried under the Amityville Horror myth. Arthur Shawcross, Michael Bruce Ross, Harvey "The Hammer" Carignan, Britain's tourist from hell John Martin Scripps, and the Sunset Strip couple, Douglas Clark and Carol Bundy.

Any documentary can show you what they did. This book decodes why.

You'll discover:

• The four-part engine driving every killer, from curated grievance to rehearsed fantasy
• How ordinary charm becomes a hunting tool, and the test that exposes it
• Why parole boards, task forces and juries kept believing men they knew were lying
• The manipulation levers used on victims that are still used on you, in sales calls, bad relationships and airport bars
• How to tell a real confession from a counterfeit, a diagnosis from an excuse, and a passenger from a partner in crime