Cat and Mouse: Mind Games With a Serial Killer

by Brian Lane, Bill Suff

Based on interviews with William "Billy" Lester Suff, convicted in 1995 of torturing, maiming, and murdering twelve prostitutes in California, a psychological study of Suff traces his sordid career and explores his unflappable duplicity.

Genres: True Crime

455 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1997

Reviews

[Fishface · Rating 2 out of 5]

This author has no sense of what he's trying to tell us. He jerks us back and forth from the serial killing career of Bill Suff to his own devastating guilt at having killed his mother and best friend in a road accident. There seems to be no connection between the two. The author bemoans the way the serial killer he's interviewing messes with his head, but we never see it happen so that's kind of a puzzler. Worst of all, he makes the usual error of treating the killer like some kind of glamorous criminal mastermind and pays just about zero attention to the victims. I think he would have been better off separating this into 2 books, and throwing away the one about Bill Suff, who isn't worth the paper this book is printed on.

[Andrew Stegall · Rating 5 out of 5]

great book not all the facts tho I've known Mr.Suff for 15 years his case is mostly unknown due to same time as O.J. good read

[Malicious Mind · Rating 1 out of 5]

Abysmal. Avoid.Cat and Mouse: Mind Games with a Serial Killer

[Reader · Rating 1 out of 5]

Horrible, adolescent-esque writing by an author who somehow manages to be more delusional and self-aggrandizing than the psychopath he’s interviewing.

On the author’s website, he claims the book was bestselling, and that the Boston Globe had compared his writing to Nabokov, which a quick Google search will reveal to be false.

Every page of the book oozes with a painfully obvious desperation for a movie adaptation, which explains why he exports so much crime thriller tropes into a case, character, and author that have 0 intrigue beyond the tragic victims, who are gleefully exploited by the author.

In short, he is your run-of-the-mill failed Hollywood types whose ambitions exceeded his median talent

[Pamela Ramirez · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love true crime but I don’t recommend this book. Very self serving on the part of the serial killer AND the author. Meh.

[Grint Rupert]

have to read it first to start a comment