i was disapointed that there were no pictures in the book. i also felt that more detail should have gone in the ending such as last meal, who attended the execution, and interviews with families of the victims

This book is quite awsome. Vivid description will put you into Eddie's mind and see the true horror of a serial killer.

This chilling expose' of Eddie Cole's mind, written by criminologist Michael Newton, is quite terrifying. Cole is one of the most depraved personalities of all time, equal if not higher than the other sicko we all know, Henry Lee Lucas. It is frightening what a damaged psyche can do; my only complaint is the lack of photos:they would have been a nice addition to this fine volume.

This book may look like a good starting point on serial killers but that's it. I haven't read the book yet and I've already found many mistakes: out of date information, exclusion of remarkable cases (Daniel Camargo, Charles Whitman), Factual errors (Colombia has no death penalty), etc. The book is not that bad, but it's not completely trustable. You can use this book to get acquaintance with the general subject and then research on specific cases of your choice, at least that's what I'm doing.

This book is the best resource for broad information on the subject of serial killers I have yet read.

If you are looking for a wide variety of fact on the subject but don't want to put the effort into a lot of research this is the book.

This book is not as indepth or as comprehensive as some of the single subject serial killer books I have read, but it does provide a wealth of information for starting out.

Serial murder is my area of expertise. I have spent 16 years studying and writing about this field and Michael Newton's works have been along side me for all those years. Newton is an excellent researcher. His work is of the highest quality. His books are a steal. The Encyclopedia is an excellent resource for anyone who needs a thumbnail sketch of serial killers from around the world. Newton has contributed to the growing body of serial killer research by helping to track down and document these killers. Newton was one of the first authors to document the imfamous Dr. Swango, years before any other noticed him.
I highly recommend this book to students, researchers and the just curious. But beware, you may learn more than you ever wanted to know

This book is great for all, beginer / intermediate / advenced. It has a wide range of projects that are fun to make, but some are very difficult. I would recomend this book for not-so-serious folders.

This book has lots of color photos and pretty simple instructions. I would not exactly recommend this book for beginners. Most of the projects are pretty easy, but there are a few that are tricky and time consuming. Over all a pretty good book to have in you collection if you into Origami.

This is a very good book for beginners to cut their teeth on. Some very good projects that are practical as well as fun to make. The only drawback of this book would be the lack of history regarding origami, etc. I would have been interested in learning more about how origami came about and evolved into its present form.

Not quite up there with "Kiss the girls", but better than "Jack & Jill". Wish the identity of the second serial killer weren't so very obvious so early on in the book. Believe Mr. Patterson would enjoy having another book of his turned into a movie. (Hints that he'd prefer Denzel Washington to Morgan Freeman as Alex Cross.)

Even though I have not finished this Newton book I have enjoyed his writing once again. Hunting Humans- was the first title I read and found this one to be just as entertaining (if I may call it that) The only times I felt a bit let down were when he mentioned a name I was unable to find any other information on.

This book was exciting and kept me interested. It had in depth synopsis of the trial. Some of the childhood information seemed a bit far-fetched, but as a whole the book was an enjoyable read. If you enjoy true crime you will enjoy this book.

FBI agents Joe Flynn and Martin Tanner work the serial killer beat for the western states in general and Los Angles in particular.When they respond to a murder Tanner recognizes the work as that of a man he saw executed in Texas the year before.What follows is a trip down nightmare lane that involes a goverment experiment to create the perfect covert assassin and a secret goverment agency that is willing to go to any length to cover it's tracks,including the murder of an FBI agent,and his wife.

This book will be very helpful to someone needing correct information about guns. It is completely worthless to those of us (like me) who picked it up believing that it would touch on all sorts of weapons - knives, swords, bows, etc. I know they are targeting mystery writers, but not all mystery writers want a gun-toting suspect.

I picked this book up because 1.) I enjoy the Howdunit series, and 2.) I was hoping to find out some useful information about guns for my own writing. From reading the first few pages of the book, the author comes off as all-knowing and haughty. I decided to overlook this because many writers have done the same thing, especially when they're pretty much an "expert" on what they are writing. It took me a week to get through this book. Why? Because I found the text boring; it read like an outdated text book.

Firstly, the book presented a lot of history. Maybe too much. I didn't really count that as a negative since not every mystery/action writer writes in the present year(s). The way the material, though, was presented was enough to cure my insomnia. I nodded off on this book more times than I'd like to mention. The only thing that interested me in that "history lesson" was the depictions of the 'Old West'.

Secondly, where were the pictures? It was hard for me to get a mental image of the guns he was describing. Yes, he described them nicely, but I'm not going to describe the gun exactly as he did in my own story. It would have been nice to see pictures, so that I could have rendered my own descriptions. In the back, there are only 4 guns pictured. I found myself relying more so on internet sources (handguns.com) than the descriptions in this book.

Thirdly, unless you have at least a little prior knowledge of guns, then this may confuse you. There are too many technical terms and not enough layman terms. You'll find yourself constantly flipping back and foward through the book to make any sense of some the things he mentions.

But in defense of the book, it's obvious the author knows his guns. I was impressed with his knowledge on the subject, but I wasn't impressed with the way he presented his knowledge. It seems like he was trying to exercise his rather extensive vocabulary rather than actually educating his readers. Would I recommend this book for buying? I don't know it depends on your knowledge thus far on firearms. It might come in handy as a reference every now and again, but personally I feel there are better references out there.

Michael Newton, the author, has penned around 70 novels, and his knowledge of weapons and firearms is undisputable. However, the problem with this book is the amount of space it takes on the history of weapons. For the crime writer, it's way, way too much. The other problem is that it lacks illustrations. A book of this kind could have done with color plates so that the writer can get a chance to describe the gun him/herself by looking at the picture rather than having to rely on Newton's analysis. The appendix and glossary are probably the most useful for writers, with clear labelled photographs of some weapons (only 4!) and tables of calibre types and ammunition. Unless you absolutely want to own the entire Howdunnit Series, give this one a miss. It suffers from having to fit into the look and size of the other books in the series, when it clearly should have been a bigger and more pictorial book.

Save your money: there are much better (and more accurate) sources for the same information available for free on the Internet to anyone who knows how to use a search engine. Not recommended.

As one of only a few females i know who are interested in the serial killer, i found this book hard to quit reading, i was enthralled in many cases, only to find myself wanting to read a book several hundred pages long on the murderess. Some cases left me feeling like he was fluffing up his book. However, some other entries left me cringing and in awe. I have wondered where all the female murderers were kept.... Michael Newton unlocked that door for me can't wait to read Hunting Humans

Learn about Elizabeth Bathory, Carpathian countess who bathed in blood to stay young! Or about Mary Bell, 11 year old murderess! Read the unbelievable exploits of Martha Beck, who went from washing corpses to making them! If you're at all interested in this kind of stuff (my cotton candy) then this is surely the book for you. Very thorough and entertaining.

This biography of the discoverer of gravity and inventor of calculus by the co-author of a similar work on Einstein misses the mark. Michael White concentrates on filling the gaps in Newton's personal life - mainly focusing on all his feuds but also offering unprovable speculation about a relationship with another man and with a widow - but offers little insight into the science. It's as if White assumes everyone understands how gravity works and what calculus is. There's little here that shows me how great a scientist Newton was, but too much to tell me that he was not much of a human.

There is also the author's contention that Newton's extensive dabblings in alchemy directly influenced his success as a thinker. Little evidence offered by White backs this up. White also undermines himself by connecting Newton's alchemy and Newton's unorthodox but deeply-felt Christian beliefs, thereby joining the far-too-long list of science writers who denigrate religion along the way to worshipping at the feet of Science.

Beyond all that, this book is competently written if wordy. White clearly needs Gribbin's help to succeed as a biographer.

True, Newton was a "man of science" and certainly among the
greatest. But "science" was not in the 17th Century what it
is to us today and like many of his contemporaries, Newton
inherited a scientific legacy which was steeped in alchemistic
mysticism dating back to the Ancients.

White cites the undeniable alchemistic, mystical influences in
Newton's thinking not to stir up controversy or serve up "gossip"
as some would superficially contend.

Rather he intends to point out the quasi-magical, occult leanings
in Newton's thought which enabled him to dream of or "conjure"
such unseen forces as gravity while other minds remained trapped
in commonplace and hence unfruitful modes of thinking.

Basically, Newton's ability to shift his view of physical reality
to a new paradigm, White's book seems to be saying, was as much
a product of his sub-conscious imaginings as well as his
conscious, rational thought.

Einstein purportedly said [and I paraphrase] that imagination
was more important than knowledge because new knowledge comes
to us nascently through sheer imagination.

If this book seems to delve too much into Newton's mystical
beliefs then it is simply to compensate for the two-dimensional
and in some cases, untruthful "rational" biographical depictions
that have coloured our view of the man and ignored the role of
non-rational philosophies in driving modern science to where it
is today.

The interesting question is: we speak of modern science as a
rational endeavor today but in another hundred years, how
superstitious and primitive will we appear to posterity?

This is an excellent account of Newtons life, including not only detailed antecdotes about Newton himself but we also find in this book detailed context. This includes a nice explanation of the state of physics, mathematics and astronomy at the time Newton went to college as well as a very interesting historical account of the development of these fields. The environment and state of affairs at Cambridge at the time is also detailed quite nicely. I think the other reviewers are not being fair, Newtons interest in alchemy lasted a long time and was hardly a "one time thing". I do agree that the passage about Newtons religious views was a bit ridiculous, the claim that Newton may have seen himself as Christ is ridiculous and based on flimsy evidence. But that is only one paragraph in the book and shouldn't deter a potential reader from getting this book. The excellent descriptions of Newtons early years and the historical developments of the sciences alone make this book worth reading. An excellent description on graphs of equations and tangent lines and how these provided problems for scientists and mathematicians at the time is also very interesting, and you can see how Newton used this to invent (or discover) calculus. The history of alchemy is also very interesting, and enlightening--the author shows that the art was not all quackery and many of the instruments of basic chemistry came from it. All in all I would say this book reveals Newton for what he was, a human being with faults and complexities just like everyone else. Highly recommended.