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Bestial

By Clarissa Lee

First published in Octopus.com.my in 2001

Bestial book cover In the age when psychopaths and serial killers or rapists or lust murderers are reported daily in the American dailies, the FBI has created a Behavourial Science Unit to profile these man-beasts, the “Gorilla man”, or the label bequeathed to Earle Leonard Ferral(Nelson) by the Press of the post Jazz age, a murderer-cum-necrophilliac, would had escaped into the pages of obscurity if not for the book written about him and what drove him to commit such crimes that leave us cold to this day.

A gripping read by a professor of American Literature and Culture of Queens College, City University of New York, this is a book that bound to give you sleepless nights (therefore not good for non-insomniacs) as you are driven by curiosity to participate in the study of this man that defies the convention of an ordinary criminal. Though the book is non-fiction and is full of hard facts, it has the makings of a popular novel. It’s well researched and the story is arranged in such a way that it does not come out sounding like a hodge-podge of collated information from newspapers, police reports, medical reports and various archives. We can trace the life of the man from birth and shudder when we think how decent looking men can house monsters beneath. We also get a view of events that were taking place, some historically riveting whilst some has now vanished into oblivion. We also get some mention of other serial killers who came before and after him, who relinquished all form of guilt as to their involvement inspite of circumstantial evidences that pointed strongly at them. From the legendary Jack the Ripper to the later day Charles Manson and Ted Bundy. Is the gallows the only place for these cold-blooded, brutal murderers or should they be preserved for scientific studies? His crime was so heinous that Canadian $1500 rewarded was offered for his capture, a hefty sum during the post-Depression period.

As this book has proven, lust murders or sex-murders are not new though it is not known how long has it been going on…as there weren’t publicity like now… or is it the mechanization of recent times that caused such perversion to the human psyche….the horror as yet remains in the abyss of unknown mysteries.

Title : Bestial
Author : Harold Schechter
ISBN no. : 0-671-73219-6
Price : US$6.99/Can$8.99
Publisher :Pocket Star Books, a division of Simon and Schuster Inc. NY.