100 Most Infamous Criminals: Murder, Mayhem and Madness

by Jo Durden-Smith

An indispensable introduction to the darker side of life, revealing the often strange and grisly stories behind the world's most infamous murderers, swindlers and crooks.

100 Most Infamous Criminals is an astounding compendium of crimes and their perpetrators. Here you will find the stories of some of history's most notorious criminals, the lives they led, the crimes they committed and the destruction and sorrow they left in their wake. This collection includes such notorious villains

• Jack the Ripper, the man who terrorized Victorian London.
• Charles Manson, the infamous 60s cult leader.
• Ted Bundy, the serial killer beloved by his neighbors.
• Al Capone, the king of gangsters.
• Harold Shipman, Britain's angel of death.

ABOUT THE The True Criminals series provides gripping exposés on some of the most twisted criminals the world has ever seen. Augmented by chilling photographs, this series provides snapshots into the minds of these villains and their deadly acts.

Genres: True Crime, Crime

207 pages, Paperback

Published October 1, 2021

About the author

Jo Durden Smith was a British author and a documentary film maker.
He was educated at Haileybury and Merton College, Oxford. He worked for World in Action, Granada TV's documentary team, where his rock films were made.
Subsequently he lived in New York, and then Moscow. He was a columnist for The Moscow Times, to 1997.

Reviews

[~Madison · Rating 2 out of 5]

Would’ve benefited by being longer and more details

[Joel Duncan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm done with serial killers for a good long while after this book. I don't think I can stomach one more severed head, mutilated and raped corpse or cannibal feast.

In my defence this book is titled the most infamous criminals, not serial killers. So I was looking forward to art thieves and masterminds as well as sickos. But no they were pretty much all sickos, apart from D.B Cooper.

I think this collection of murderers is well written and split up into the countries they came from, which only included three sections but there were a large amount of people in them. It does its best to include pictures for most of the murderer's mugshots.

I think as other people mentioned, it would have been better to do fifty criminals, had more variety in the crimes they committed and more detail about the crimes. I think the author delighted in the sickening details and emphasised those other the buildup and consequences and that's why they could fit so many into a slim-ish book.

If you're a serial killer buff, you'll probably have come across most of these people (after all they are infamous) but I'd recommend this to curious strong stomached newcomers to the dark side.

[Tracy Hodge · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book on my holiday as just spotted it on the bookshelf and I do love reading about crime and criminals.

Its taken me longer to read than I expected, and its not really a book that flows brilliantly; the book has separate entries for all the criminals that are being referred to, which can make it difficult to get into.

Having said that I did find most parts really interesting and I did learn somethings about criminals I had heard about, especially those in the long distant past.

A good book to read if you want to find out about the criminals you may have heard about.

I'm glad I did read it but it won't be a book I will be reading again - but glad to have changed my genre of reading books set in villages and Cornwall!!

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good short hand notes on not just serials, giving an introduction to those who need further research. Very US orientated, meaning a lot of Brits who should be there are missing. Just make it a longer book!

[Safiah khan · Rating 5 out of 5]

sooo interesting x

[Glenn Hammer · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are some really mean people out there. This might remind you to pray for safety whenever you leave your house.

[Sophie Peterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

' Not for the faint hearted
: )

[Elia · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's alright as a primer but I did uncover a couple of factual errors which made me wonder what the editor of this was up to.

[Ellie | meepsbooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was super interesting and a great pick for any true crime fan!

[Molly Dennehy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book, but found the actual writing difficult to follow at times, just due to sentence structures.

[Tiffany (Roth) Przygoda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love that this had each criminal broken down into short sections - no more than 3 pages. It technically took me two months to read this but I used this book as a sort of buffer between other books and for when when I didn’t have much time to read and didn’t want to risk having to stop mid-chapter. However, I do wish it would have gone in to a little more detail on some of the different criminals. All in all, it wasn’t a bad read.