Talking With Psychopaths and Savages - A journey into the evil mind: A chilling study of the most cold-blooded, manipulative people on planet earth

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Talking With Psychopaths and Savages was the UK's bestselling true-crime title of 2017, and he is now the country's No. 1 true-crime author. The author has the most irritatingly self-righteous tone I've ever come across, not to mention his syntax and grammar are appalling. Absolutely nothing to do with the title but rather one angry middle aged man's rant about gun control in a country he frequently declares is idiotic and full of 'losers'. I joined Goodreads just so I could warn people not to waste their time or money on this ridiculous book, which is essentially the incomprehensible ramblings of a narcissistic lunatic who obviously has never heard of an editor in his life. This is not an insight into the psychology of killers. This is a selection of case studies - most details of which can be found on Wikipedia - linked together with the author's self-agrandising narrative. Berry-Dee uses language best suited to a gutter tabloid to paint demonic pictures of serial murderers, without giving any understanding or insight into why they committed such dreadful crimes. Indeed, I feel I have learnt more about how Berry-Dee manipulates people, than I have about the mindset of the killers. The incarcerated appear to have reacted quite rationally in telling him to get lost, once they have got wind of his deceptions!

I continue to read but the interview never comes, just a history of the killer and what he did (I could find this on Wikipedia) and the authors opinions. I enjoyed the detail this book had, and I appreciated the research that will have gone into writing it. The style it was written in, wasn't particularly easy on my eyes and I wouldn't say it flowed particularly well, but overall it was a good read. Add to all this the near constant spelling and grammatical errors as well as jumbled up dates (he claims that Oscar Pisotorius murdered Reeva Steenkamp in 2013 and 2015, then says the trial was in 2014... like I said - Wikipedia would be more informative) and you have what I can safely say is the worst book I have ever read. If this is your first foray into true crime and you don’t want to actively lose brain cells, read I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara instead. She never bragged about how great she was, never made fun of the Golden State Killer’s victims and her book was clearly proof read before it was published.This is the first and last book I'll be reading by Berry-Dee. What a terrible book by a terrible author. In this book he focuses specifically on the phenomenon of mass murders and spree killers. CBD delves deep into American gun culture, school shootings, historical shootings, UK based massacres such as Hungerford and Dunblane before concluding with some thoughts on the "incel phenomenon". I wasn't expecting to love this book as much as I did. But Christopher Berry-Dee has such a relatable way of writing, and I really felt I was inside his mind and sitting having a chat with him. If you want to read about the mind of killers there are plenty of amazing books out there, this isn’t one of them. I swore I’d never read this author again and then a friend bought me this book. I have a thing of never not finishing a book so I pushed through, but it was hard work! This is not a book for the squeamish, but it is undeniably fascinating in its portrayal of just what one human being will do to others - while all too often moving among us unnoticed and unhindered. If their crimes seem as incomprehensible as they are horrific, it is undeniably true that the world's most savage killers may be much closer than we think . . .

This is cheap, empty, self-important writing, and the book hasn't been properly edited - poorly structured with unnecessary repetitions, spelling and grammar mistakes. The author expresses on all the clever ways he managed to get information from these killers and it was like being in a room with a guy bragging about all his accomplishments. The detail from these psychopaths and savages was actually little to none, there was a lot you could have just Googled and found their basic information from, what the person did, why and how, other than that Christopher got a few sentences, if that, from a few of these people and I bet they didn't want to speak to him just as much as I'd want to.This is the first book by Christopher Berry-Dee that I read and I am so happy I found him. Being a person interested in true crime, criminology, and so on, not knowing about this author before makes me feel bad and clueless.