The result is a chilling narrative that sets the forensic examination of killers and their crimes within the context of murder in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, an examination of the evil mind set against the insoluble problem of identifying psychopaths who kill. A natural subject for the UK's bestselling true-crime author: a study of people who randomly kill large numbers of others (spree killers), or who set out to do so in specific places or situations (mass killers). Because of the ease of obtaining firearms in the USA, many of these, inevitably, are American, but there have been other recent examples in New Zealand and Norway, while three major mass shootings took place in the UK at Hungerford in 1987 (17 dead, including the killer), Dunblane in 1996 (18, including the killer), and in Cumbria in 2010 (13, including the killer). In this book he focuses specifically on the phenomenon of mass murders and spree killers. CBD delves deep into American gun culture, school shootings, historical shootings, UK based massacres such as Hungerford and Dunblane before concluding with some thoughts on the "incel phenomenon".

I have read many books about serial killers in the past so I was excited to jump into this one. Unfortunately, this book just didn’t live up to my expectations. Basically just involves vague summaries of different mass murders, in very limited detail, with multiple references to his other books (which I can only imagine are equally as boring and self-promoting). The majority of the book is actually just a criticism of gun laws in the US. This is cheap, empty, self-important writing, and the book hasn't been properly edited - poorly structured with unnecessary repetitions, spelling and grammar mistakes. Firstly; this book title is incorrect. Never in this book do we ever get to “Talk WITH Psychopaths” etc. This book should be called “Aimlessly Talking ABOUT” because that’s all you’ll read. At the end of this ‘book’, he makes some excuses about his word count and there follows a sloppy ‘chapter’ full of errors which basically tells you to go and read his other ‘best selling’ books because he can’t be bothered to finish this one properly. I gave up at that point and had to remind myself that I’d borrowed this from a friend and therefore couldn’t burn it.There were some discussions about the anatomy of a killers brain, but not a lot. I would have liked to have seen more in depth intellectual discussion not just opinion.

A noted writer and criminologist of many years' standing, Christopher Berry-Dee is also the author of the bestselling Talking to Serial Killers.... Book Genre: Biography, Crime, Death, Education, Horror, Mystery, Nonfiction, Psychology, Science, True Crime I did find the cases interesting. There were some that I was not aware of before, which I learnt about by reading this book.Not only the worst true crime book I’ve ever read, but Talking With Psychopaths and Savages is possibly the worst BOOK I’ve ever read. Berry-Dee is considered to be “the UK’s top true crime writer” and yet he is the most narcissistic, self-serving, irritating and arrogant author I’ve ever come across. If you thought John Douglas was a tad egotistical while reading Mindhunter, believe me - he ain’t got nothin’ on Berry-Dee. TALKING WITH PSYCHOPATHS AND SAVAGES has a low average rating on Goodreads and now I know why, I don't usually like calling out the author if it's down to just a poor story but this true crime book came across as really tedious. Christopher Berry-Dee does not know how to write or how to not come across as an a**hole. Whenever we get into talking about (never 'to') a spree killer, the author mentions that he spoke to this killer or that killer, but we don't get a repeat of what was said. He just says 'see my other book, I won't repeat it here' or says 'plenty of books are written about this so I don't need to talk about it'. Oh and my favourite 'there's a YouTube video about this' (without saying what video or where to find it). The book had an interesting premise, was promising, and did have plenty of detailed content about a small number of murderers which fit a definition of 'psychopath', as well as several who didn't (and who were assigned the arbitrary term 'savage'). Well researched and peppered with interesting insights, it added a little more to my understanding of this specific type of criminal. This book examines horrific crimes committed by some of the most remorseless and merciless people ever to have lived, revealing a mindset wholly alien to most people.

The worst thing for me though, is how he speaks about the victims of these murders. He constantly describes the physical appearances of the women, focusing on how beautiful they are or the shape of their bodies as if that has anything to do with anything. He describes murdered sex workers as ‘hookers’ and implies that it wasn’t as bad for them to be killed as it was for the other ‘decent young women’ who died, presumably because he deemed whatever jobs they had (we don’t find out most of the time because their actions in life were seemingly not as important as their looks to this ‘writer’) as proof that they were better people who deserved to live. What really bothered me about this trash though, was his arrogance. At one point, after discussing a young woman's gruesome death, he has the vulgar temerity to insert a quote from the victim's mother plugging one of his books on the subject. He also manages to berate female victims for not taking his advice, implying their stupidity was to blame for their murders. In Talking With Psychopaths and Savages, bestselling author and criminologist Christopher Berry-Dee takes readers deep inside the dark minds of some of the most pitiless and dangerous people alive.I don't care about your opinion, Chris. I'm not reading a true crime story to hear your politics. It was clearly insane of me to expect actual interviews with serial killers from a book which says "interviews with serial killers" on the front.