Deranged by Harold Schecter
Third of the Schecter books that my friend lent me and I have to say, I had a bit of a struggle getting through this one. This is the story of Albert Fish and I honestly hope he is unique in the history of the human race. While it’s true that all serial killers are bad people, this guy was truely evil in every sense of the word. This book can give you nightmares. I think it’s mostly because his prey was little kids, and the unspeakable torture he put them through, some as young as four.
The book itself follows the familiar pattern of Schechters other books. It starts with the unexplained disappearances of two children in New York City, then follows the kidnapping, torture, murder and canibalism of 10 year old Grace Budd of New York City during the Great Depression. The context presented here, I think, is better than the other two. I didn’t realize, for example, that kidnapping was so prevalent at the time, and the contemporaneous Lindberg case was far from unique.
It took six years before solving that case. When they finally arrested Fish, the tale of his life would be unique among all serial killers. The last section of the book gives a detailed account of the trial and includes long sections of transcripts. It’s at once riveting and appalling. Fish was found guilty and executed. As much of an opponent of capital punishment as I am, I think I might have agreed with the juror who said, “we all thought he was insane, but he deserved to die.”
One puzzling thing about this book, though. The title pages had the “this is a work of fiction, any resemblance to characters living or dead is purely co-incidental”. While it would be good if that were true, I doubt that it is. I just wonder why it’s there.
You need a strong stomach for this one.
