Psycho USA

Famous American Killers You Never Heard Of

By: Harold Schechter

Narrated by: Danny Campbell

Length: 14 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's summary

In the horrifying annals of American crime, the infamous names of brutal killers such as Bundy, Dahmer, Gacy, and Berkowitz are writ large in the imaginations of a public both horrified and hypnotized by their monstrous, murderous acts. But for every celebrity psychopath who's gotten ink for spilling blood, there's a bevy of all-but-forgotten homicidal fiends studding the bloody margins of US history. In this book you'll meet:

• Robert Irwin, "The Mad Sculptor": He longed to use his carving skills on the woman he loved, but had to settle for making short work of her mother and sister instead.
• Peter Robinson, "The Tell-Tale Heart Killer": It took two days and four tries for him to finish off his victim, but no time at all for keen-eyed cops to spot the fatal flaw in his floor plan.
• Anton Probst, "The Monster in the Shape of a Man": The ax-murdering immigrant's systematic slaughter of all eight members of a Pennsylvania farm family matched the savagery of the Manson murders a century later.
• Edward H. Rulloff, "The Man of Two Lives": A genuine Jekyll and Hyde, his brilliant scholarship disguised his bloodthirsty brutality.

©2012 Harold Schechter (P)2016 Tantor

No more murder ballads!

I thought this book was great. I was a little hesitant because of some of the reviews, but I decided to give it a chance and I'm glad I did. The cases are relatively short, but still long enough to be interesting and packed with details. There was one in particular that had me so invested that when it got to the reveal of what happened to the victim I had to stop what I was doing and take a break for a few minutes because... wow. Some of the cases are a little similar but none are repetitive. All in all I would recommend this book.

The reason I took a star off is because if there was a murder ballad written for a case the author insisted in including it, and bonus! One case had two! I never knew what a murder ballad was, but now I know they're bad poetry that makes up stories about murder cases and if I ever hear one again I'm going to scream.

Great listen!

More books like this would be great. Really factional and enlightening about real and true criminals

The Stories

This is worth reading if you have a fascination for Serial Killings. I also enjoy the author Harold Schecter.

great read

engrossing tales of crimes in the past. very detailed analysis of the criminals and what drove them to kill.

Psycho USA

I love Harold Schechter. He's my favorite true crime author. You definitely can tell he's an English professor. His writing style and vocabulary are impeccable. If you like historical true crime, you will love him. This is a compilation of several crimes. He also has books on a single subject like Albert Fish, Ed Gein, H.H. Holmes etc.

well read well written

finaly a book without a narator that has a speach impediment....seriously, why is so hard to find someone that can read with inflection without a lisp? This book is very interesting , had no idea about most of these crimes.

True crime enthusiast's dream

Excellent collection of unusual cases that people have forgotten. Well organized and well written.

Great historical value in the knowledge.

I loved all the information and the narrator had a pleasing enough voice, but what really annoyed me was his lack of knowledge on pronunciation. There were a few spots where the grammar was incorrect but that could have been in the book, something that got passed the editor, but his pronunciation of certain things was awful. Certain things specifically that he repeated throughout that chapter just graded on my nerves.

Loved it

Good shit! Very interesting stories, and Schechter’s writing is always a treat. Definitely worth a listen.

So Many Cases!

Story – 4.5/5
Narration – 4.5/5

In “Psycho USA”, Harold Schechter catalogues many of the lesser-known serial murderers in the USA’s crime history.

This book is amazing if you like this subject. It just goes on and on, with case after case of grisly crimes! It’s almost too much, so you may want to treat this like an anthology to be taken in bites. Schechter delves into each case with enough detail to give one a good sense of the crime, but doesn’t include too much detail which allows the inclusion of so many cases.

Recommendation – if you’re interested in serial killers, then by all means, get it!