No comments about Love and Freedom, My Unexpected Life In Prague.

No comments about Misbegotten Son, A Serial Killer and His Victims: The True Story of Arthur J. Shawcross.

No comments about LOVE AND FREEDOM.

1 comments about Arthur Shawcross: The Genese River Killer.

1. I found this book and tape to be incredibly insightful into the mind of Shawcross, it helps you to understand what goes through the mind of a killer, and deals with each murder in a quite good detail. I am buying this again, because my first copy is so worn out! Highly recommended to anyone interested in the Serial Killer genre.

No comments about THE MISBEGOTTEN SON: A SERIAL KILLER AND HIS VICTIMS: THE TRUE STORY OF ARTHUR J. SHAWCROSS..

1 comments about Arthur Shawcross: The Genesee River Killer : The Grisly True Crime Account of the Rochester Prostitute Murders!.

1. If you want to know anything about the Genesee River Killings then this is the book you are after, it goes into the detail you want and leaves out nothing. A great read and a good reference point for those studying the serial killer genre. Highly recommended.

5 comments about The Misbegotten Son.

1. Raising as many questions as it answers, allowing its characters to speak in their own words/voices, and unflinchingly looking into the very worst of human behavior, Jack Olsen's The Misbegotten Son rings like Dostoevsky plopped down in upstate New York and in the presence of Arthur Shawcross. Olsen died recently, stripping true crime of a master bringer of news about murderers and rapists who, as it turns out, are always and despite their atrocities, human beings more similar to you and me than different. Olsen is a demon researcher and dug up a ton of first-person narratives having to do with the dozens of women and children Shawcross killed. Besides the words of Shawcross himself--whose pathology baffled plenty of shrinks--Olsen lets us hear from victims' relatives, cops, doctors, Shawcross's wives and girlfriends. Then Olsen arranges the material so that we never lose sight of those destroyed by Shawcross and, at the same time, spend a lot of time in Art's presence and listening to him and the women who loved him talk about things from their points of view. Olsen is too good to reduce evil to a single-shot cause--lousy childhood, no "role models," neuropathology--what's being turned over and meditated on in The Misbegotten Son is far more mysterious and complex and important to be turned into a pop-psych conclusion. Instead he takes us as far as he and we can go into the specifics of the horror, gives us what he knows to be worth some thought, and leaves it to us to draw lessons if we can. A tremendous book judged on any terms.



2. I believe Jack Olsen is one of the best true crime authors I've read. The Misbegotten Son is an extremely well done chronicle of Arthur Shawcross and his crimes as seen through the eyes of Shawcross himself and others close to him. Shawcross murdered two children in the 1970s, and through a plea agreement and good behavior was out of prison in 14 years. Shawcross, like other sociopaths, was not rehabilitated, but began killing again soon after being paroled. What is frightening is that his anger and reaction to a perceived provocation was so quick, many of his victims did not have defensive wounds. Much of the time Shawcross was easy-going and those who never saw his dark side would not believe he could murder. Particularly interesting to me was the evaluation done by Dr. Kraus. Kraus wasn't satisfied with a superficial diagnosis, and for months researched probable causes of Shawcross' sociopathic behavior. For reasons not explained, Kraus was not asked to testify during the trial, but I believe Kraus' diagnosis was right on target. Not that it made Shawcross someone to be pitied, but perhaps better understood. I also appreciated that Olsen didn't forget how the deaths of the children affected the families, nor how Shawcross devastated his own family. This is a book I'd definitely recommend.



3. I couldn't even estimate how many true crime books I've read over the years, and this is, by far, the best ever. What has frustrated me about most of these books is that they don't go very deeply into the WHY's and HOW's---Why did this happen? How did this guy get this way? This book, The Misbegotten Son, not only delves deeply into all that, it does so, eventually, at the molecular-genetic level (literally). Plus, the extensive research that also went into the lives and backgrounds of all parties involved is absolutely amazing. I hate to use such a banal phrase, but I really could not put this book down; I stayed awake for two days straight, savoring every word. The only "bad" thing about this book is that it has probably spoiled me...I can't imagine any future book coming close. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant!



4. Author Jack Olsen does a brilliant job in creating for us a terrifying portrait of a murdering psychopath--and the breath-taking race of detectives trying to find and stop his killing. Arthur Shawcross was a terrifying killer machine. He brutally tortured and killed two young children in his first cycle of death. Detectives worked night and day to find him and after excrutiating failure, they finally got lucky. But what happened next enraged the community and especially the police when a district attorney permitted Shawcross to plea bargain his sentence so that he was released after serving only l2 years. The DA was deservedly ruined by this plea bargain because Shawcross then began his second cycle of brutal murders--this time of prostitutes. Once more, you're treated to the heroic efforts of two detectives who went without sleep and food in their race to stop and capture the killer. It's like following a fascinating jig-saw puzzle. Piece by piece, the detectives began collecting enough clues to finally capture the mad man. My only criticism is that the book is much too long. I could have done without the numerous oral histories and the many pages devoted to psychiatric evaluations. Another major complaint is that there were no photographs of either the killer or the detectives or the victims. In a stor y this big, I think you really need to see pictures of evil and its aftermath. Perhaps photos were added to the paperback edition. Other than that, though, this book will keep you riveted as if it were a novel. The killer is one you'll never forget.



5. I investigated pyroluria and found this at Wikipedia.
   "Pyroluria was initially described by Abram Hoffer, a pioneer in orthomolecular medicine and orthomolecular psychiatry. Proponents claim that pyroluria is relatively common, but few, if any, mainstream medical experts regard the condition as genuine, with few or no articles on pyroluria found in modern medical literature."