Love of Blood: The True Story of Notorious Serial Killer Joanne Dennehy

by Christopher Berry-Dee

THE STUFF OF NIGHTMARES…

A man alone in a bedsit with a young woman friend, who suddenly unleashes a deadly onslaught, without warning or reason.

The stabs don’t hurt. They seem more like punches. Then he realises that the red liquid pumping out of his body and on to the floor is his blood. He doesn’t realise, as he drifts into unconsciousness before death supervenes, that he’ll never wake up again…

In March 2013, Joanne Dennehy stabbed three Peterborough men to death within the space of a few days. One was her landlord, Kevin Lee. Dennehy and her sidekick, Gary Stretch, put the body into a wheelie bin and dumped his corpse in a ditch close to White Post Road in the Parish of Newborough. Lukasz Slaboszewski and John Chapman were stabbed to death and disposed of in a farmland ditch several miles away. She then attempted to murder two other men. By the grace of God they survived.

Joanne Dennehy is unique, for she now ranks alongside Myra Hindley and Rosemary West as one of the most heinous female serial killers in British criminal history. Only her death will bring about her release from prison.

This book, by a leading criminologist and expert on serial killers, has been written with the full cooperation of the police involved in the case, and many of those who knew Joanne Dennehy and her victims.

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 8, 2015

About the author

Chris was a former Royal Marine intelligence officer. He is now a criminologist who has interviewed over 30 serial killers.

Reviews

[Stuart Smith · Rating 1 out of 5]

Having read Prime Suspect I was expecting a well researched and written piece about Joanne Dennehy from a respected criminologist. Instead the book appears to have been written to a word count is repetitive, poorly researched and littered with poor grammar and typos.

I expected a lot better this piece could have been written and researched better by a high school student.

[Paul Sutherland · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found it quite a disappointing book. The author seems to be unable to be unobjective towards the subjects, and whilst writing the account manages to include several seemingly unnecessary jibes about the subjects intelligence. It deals with the whole of the Dennehy murders in the first half, whilst the second is a confusing ramble mentioning other serial killers - coincidentally ones the author is keen to mention he has written about and interviewed!! Not one of the authors best works, which is a shame because some of them are extremely good reading.

[Vicki Bolz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not as bad as the reviews made it out to be.

Is it an amazing masterpiece of a crime book or the best crime book I have ever read? No it isn't. Is it the best book I read about Joanna Dennehy? Yes.
The reason why I give this book a 4 and not a 5 is because the author does get kinda over-the-top in the book and brings up other things that kinda have nothing to do with Dennehy sometimes, and the other thing is that I feel like there could have been more explained about Dennehy's life. However, I think it described her life pretty well other than the fact I wish there was more to it.
It also was a fast read as well, I spent a whole day reading this book and finished it in a day.
Honestly, if you wanna read a book about Dennehy, do this one. It is the best one I can find about her. All the other books about her were very meh.

[Anne Holmes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating!

A well-researched and very interesting , well-written book about a deeply unpleasant person and her pathetic companions. She will never be let out, a very rare female serial killer who killed with a knife.

[Phil Rice · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good account of a once in a lifetime sadastic killer of men but my only down point with this one is that mentions too much about American serial killers

[Vicky · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a disgusting human being

Well written but shows what a despicable person Joanne is truly awful and despicable for no reason other than because she can be.

[Melina Panagiotidou]

*Gymnasiearbete

[Freya Gordon · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is absolute trash. It might be a mildly entertaining read for those of use who like to laugh at an over excited crime writer’s florid turn of phrase but this guy is supposed to be an actual criminologist. I say ‘supposed to be’ because I can’t find any mention of his qualifications - where did he study? To what outcome? Does he teach? What qualifies him to claim that Lombroso’s theories of anthropological criminology were in any way valid or applicable to these subjects? When he started espousing these long-debunked theories I googled him and found nothing but listings of his books. His blurbs claim he is an editor of The New Criminologist - which appears to be an online journal that he ‘acquired’ (the wording used on the website) and has not been updated in years (the stories there appear to be from 2006). He is also supposedly the director/founder of something called Criminology Research Institute - which I also cannot find information of beyond the blurbs provided by publishers. He has appeared as an expert criminologist on talk shows and documentary series since the 90’s but none of them provide any verifiable information on his qualifications. The About The Author in this book makes no mention of any academic qualifications but the first thing it tells us is that he a direct descendent of Dr John Dee - Court Astrologer to Queen Elizabeth II - certainly that’s the only qualification I look for in criminological experts *SARCASM*

A lot of the book appears to have been cobbled together from information already freely available- for instance the substantial summing up and sentencing by the Judge is certainly available online, the words of a ‘graphologist’ previously printed in a tabloid are heavily quoted too and there are quite a lot of historical tangents and pauses for dictionary definitions. Almost as if he has included the material he was reading to prepare for the book rather than actually writing the book.
He also seems to think we will be interested in his views about a musical production that was put on by inmates at the same prison as his subject - for a professional criminologist (giving him the benefit of the doubt) he seems to be bizarrely opposed to the notion, never mind the practice, of offender rehabilitation. It was a strange tangent to go on as he was supposed to be writing a book about a woman who has been sentenced to a whole life term.
There is chapter after chapter where he holds forth about the morality, appearances and incomes of perpetrators and victims, while providing very little information. It seems that almost none of the family or friends of any of the parties were available or willing to be interviewed (maybe they'd googled him) so the writer spends a portion of his introduction bitterly complaining about this, which was so unprofessional that I probably should have considered it a warning for the rest of the book. Yes - how DARE the victims of this crime not give up their valuable time for free so that you could write this book and make money from their story!? Clearly they deserve to be named and shamed in this way! *sarcasm* Seriously though - Joanne Dennehy’s ex is raising their daughters in safety out of sight of the press and I think he deserved better than this stranger publicly berating him for backing out of an interview and then asking if he had ‘any intellect at all’. It also didn’t need to be hammered home that they were ‘unwanted’ - you might be able to say that their mother had no maternal feeling towards them but there is no thought given to how much their father might have wanted and loved them. This seems very cruel. He and those daughters are victims of their mother too and if there is one thing that is just unforgivable in a true crime writer it is disrespect for the victims. You are making your living writing about the worst thing that ever happened to them, the actions of someone else that changed their lives - they don’t owe you anything.

[Kcg · Rating 1 out of 5]

The topic was interesting, and the price was right. That was really it. The book contains a large amount of typos and formatting issues making it hard to read. I thought this would be a comprehensive book, but it was far far from it. The first half of the book the author identifies his style, more his musings. Very small amount of facts, filler filler and more filler. This really felt like a poor first draft. I don't really like to leave negative reviews but this book needed one. It is almost like a daily news rag in book form.

I am cautious to ever buy anything from this author again.

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

If your intrigued in what makes people turn or switch into a murder or serial killer then I would recommend this book.

Christopher Berry-Dee has done a great job in how he has approached this case and the way in how he has put his interviews with evidence of what went on was straight to the point.

Interesting and intriguing read.