Both fascinating and disturbing on many levels. A book that covers the means and motives behind the more than 4,000 killings over the past fifty years.
The book tells the stories of not just “how” they died, but “why.” Why were these people, either important or seemingly innocent, knocked off? Was it for fame? Power? Money?
Here’s a list of some of the methods that the book touches on:
Exploding telephones, pipe-guns and bullets made of teeth, aspirin explosives, cobra-venom darts, a rifle that shoots around corners, a ‘piss bomb’ (10 cups of boiled urine mixed with nitric acid), exploding clams, samurai swords, karate chops, poisoned umbrellas and a fuel-laden light aircraft. Sometimes even a regular gun.
And some of the victims:
Popes, politicians, presidents, prime ministers, pop-stars, spin doctors, judges, businessmen, writers, revolutionaries, actors, royals, generals and dictators.
Realize, this isn’t a how-to volume. It’s more an expose of how assassinations and murders have shaped our history, though it touches on the assassin’s psychology and shows how removing a single person from the scene in a violent way can have such a powerful impact on the world. Sounds like a good resource. Another one to put up on the book shelf along with my encyclopedia of serial killers. Real cozy reading.
I see that smile.
Fascinating, in fact.
Your typical closing, ‘I see that smile’, implies in this case that the reader delights in this type of thing… Just thought I’d point out that it sounds kind of funny in context.
~Always~
So you’re saying you don’t delight in this kind of thing? Don’t think you can fool us…
Ok, so sometimes I do, but it’s only when the dead guy is the bad guy. Or when they’re stupid and it’s good they’re out of the story so the smart characters can have more pages.
~Always~