Books like The Gates of Janus: Serial Killing and Its Analysis

"The Gates of Janus" was written by England's notorious serial child killer Ian Brady, the male half of the "The Moors Murderers" duo. The book consists of two parts, whereby the first half is a somewhat rambling exposition of Brady's nihilistic philosophy consisting of moral relativism and Marquis de Sade. This is the more perturbing aspect of the book since it is literally like plumbing the sewers of his sociopathic mind. His prose is spattered throughout with evidence of visions of grandeur. Brady views himself almost as a criminal mastermind and omits to mention exactly what he is instead: a weak little man who preyed upon the smallest and most defenseless. He attempts to present society as a mass of hypocrites who would have behaved just as he had if they only had the courage and he essentially argues that serial killers (and criminals in general) are really courageous and heroic individuals who with their own individual set of ethical standards, choose to defy collective morality. The other half of the book consists of a number of chapters where Brady attempts to psychologically profile a handful of infamous serial killers such as John Wayne Gacy and Ted Bundy, but although I found his insight interesting, essentially adds nothing to anything I've read before on them. Initially it sounds like a good idea to apply a intelligent serial killer's insight to the acts of other serial killers in the belief that someone who committed similar acts might be able to shed some new light on it, but in this regard the experiment ultimately fails, especially in regard to Brady's attempt at psychological profiling. For instance, he argues that The Green River Killer (eventually found to be Gary Ridgway) is obviously shown through examination of his methodology of murder and disposal of the bodies to be someone of very high intelligence, but when The Green River Killer was finally arrested he was a man of low intelligence (I.Q 82). Brady is also a sloppy and lazy researcher as well, for instance, his narrative of Carl Panzram contradicts in numerous places that which is found in Panzram's Journal of Murder by Thomas E Gaddis, a book that Brady must have used for his source material. Not to mention Brady also makes the exaggerated claims that the sort of barbaric treatment Panzram suffered at the hands of prison authorities are still practiced in prison today, an admission made even more absurd by the fact that Brady's experience of prison is pure luxury compared to a prison like Dannemora or Leavenworth in the time period in which Panzram served his time there, with Brady even allowed at one point a computer in his cell. Also, his almost dismissive chapter on Henry Lee Lucas claims that Lucas was severely abused by his father and argues that the reason why Lucas had a murderous resentment toward his mother was because she betrayed him by allowing the abuse to happen. This is a blatant disregard of the actual facts. In all other accounts of Lucas' life I've read, his father was a legless alcoholic who was abused by his domineering wife who also unleashed her wrath on her sons. From Wikipedia:"His father, Anderson Lucas, was an alcoholic and former railroad employee who had lost his legs after being hit by a freight train. He would usually come home inebriated, and would suffer from Viola's wrath as often as his sons.Lucas claimed that he and his brother were regularly beaten by Viola, often for no reason. He once spent three days in a coma after his mother struck him with a wooden plank, and on many occasions he was forced by his mother to watch her having sex with men. Lucas also claimed that his mother would often dress him in girls' clothing. His sister Almeda Lucas supports his story, and she claims that she once had two pictures of Henry as a toddler dressed in girls' clothing. Lucas described an incident when he was given a mule as a gift by his uncle, only to see his mother shoot and kill it. Lucas also claimed that, at the age of eight, he was given a teddy bear by one of his teachers, and was then beaten by his mother for accepting charity.When Lucas was 10, his brother accidentally stabbed him in the left eye while they were fighting. His mother ignored the injury for four days, and subsequently the eye grew infected and had to be replaced by a glass eye."Ultimately, The Gates of Janus is worth reading if only for the chance to see what it is like to view the world through a psychopathic killer's eyes, complete with obligatory self pity, hypocrisy, contempt for human life, and grandiose dreams.