Books : Hunting Evil: Inside the Ipswich Serial Murders

Rating: - Brilliant
I have just finished reading his book and it is brilliant! It is a great mix of true crime, academic criminology and new journalism. It also suggests new theories about how to look at serial killing - based on Wilson's other books and his career working with serial killers - and he suggests that we should stop analysing the serial killers and their motivation, and instead look at the people that they are able to kill. He calls this the "structural tradition". I read some of the other reviews and they didn't seem to pick up on this aspect of what has been argued here - despite the fact that Harrison and especially Wilson were at pains to draw this point out, and which explains why they were not in least concerned about interviewing Wright (although they did interview several Wright family members).
Brilliant read and I would recommend this to anyone who wants to try and understand serial killing in a completely different way.

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Rating: - Ultimately a Disappointment
Let's cut straight to the chase: this book is ultimately a disappointment.

On the plus side, the book is a good journalistic account of the course of the investigation into the 5 murders, and does reveal several facts that were not publicised during the investigation (particularly in relation to suspect Tom Stephens). But it will never go down as one of the great true crime books.

The lack of an interview with the killer, Steve Wright, is a glaring omission - and the authors know this. That is why the reader is repeatedly reminded of the fact that most killers either do not talk about their crimes at all (e.g. Harold Shipman) or, when they do, lie (e.g. Fred West). But this means that any conclusions as to why Wright committed the crimes that he did are speculative and lacking enough authority to really make the reader feel that (s)he has learned something about the motivations of this killer. As other reviewers have commented, details about Wright's life do not emerge until chapter 7 (190 pages into the 299 page book) which demonstrates the extent to which analysis of Wright is based upon second-hand information and academic theory. When details of Wright's life do finally emerge, they are largely uninteresting. The authors will no doubt say that they are uninteresting because Wright's life was uninteresting - but the more pertinent reason is that, not having spoken to him, they had no real insight into a man who, by their own admission, "was experienced at hiding certain aspects of his life". Come the end of the book, the reader feels short-changed, not really having gained genuine insight into Wright's motivations.

In truth, and with respect to the authors, there is little contained in this book in terms of behavioural profiling that readers could not find out for themselves elsewhere - in David Canter and Paul Britton, for example - and in a much more detailed and compelling form. The book is very much a dumbed-down account of the Ipswich murders designed for a public it perceives as yearning for a good old "English murder". It does not read like a book that simply HAD to be written because the authors had something new and important to tell us. And this, I fear, is because ultimately - they didn't.

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Rating: - Interesting subject but poorly written
This is a case which captured the world's media - a serial killer who worked quickly and right under the nose of the police to kill five girls in quick succession. I was interested to read this account of the crimes, but I was disappointed with the way it was written. The style of writing is rather pretentious and unfortunately sounds like an Open University textbook, and it means that the writing doesn't flow as a story or lend any reality or humanity to the situation. The writers could benefit from reading up on the Plain English campaign.

I read a lot of Ann Rule books and she always manages to portray the victims warmly and genuinely, and I feel that is missing from this book - you don't really get a grasp of the victims as people.

A real shame.

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Rating: - DO SERIAL KILLERS SELL BOOKS?
Serial Killers sell newspapers - but can they sell books?

We know tabloid sales soar when front pages carry gripping headlines declaring coverage of the atrocities carried out by such murderers. Nowadays it often appears Red Top readers - and to a lesser extent broadsheet readers, too - just can't get enough of the horrifically detailed accounts of other people's very real misery.

Journalist Paul Harrison and Criminologist David Wilson have combined their fascinatingly informative experiences of being `on the ground' at the scenes of the Ipswich Murders - the killing of 5 prostitutes by Serial Killer Steve Wright in the Suffolk town in late 2006 - and cleverly packaged them into an eye-catching paperback, `Hunting Evil; Inside the Ipswich Serial Murders', which most definitely `does what it says on the cover'.

Will it sell, though? Is there really a big appetite for the definitive guide to past tragedies, in this fast moving throw-away age, when many who were certainly kept captivated by events in Ipswich circa 2006 are unashamedly hungering for new horrors, rather than re-visiting shocking events of the past?

`Hunting Evil' certainly deserves to be a winner, as Harrison and Wilson have done a wonderful job of balancing the content - background detail of the victims, examination of evidence, thoughts on the police investigations, interviews with those closest to the victims, expert theories and accounts of Wright's trial at the start of 2008 - to ensure the reader gets the picture, without feeling overwhelmed by any specific element of the pair's enthralling accounts, or out of their depth by professional jargon.

Harrison and Wilson have bent over backwards to ensure they respect the memories of killer Wright's 5 tragic victims - Gemma Adams, Tania Nicol, Anneli Alderton, Annette Nicholls and Paula Clenell. The poignant pictures of the women in the book - as well as on the cover - and the inclusion of courageously accepting and helpful contributions from their families go a long way to emphasis that absolutely no shame should be attached to any of these vulnerable young women - lest anyone thinks otherwise, Wright was the depraved wrongdoer in all this - no one else.

This well put together paperback goes some way to answering many of the intriguing questions those who are fascinated by Serial Killings would pose..............but, it also raises as many questions; about the role of our society, and how the vulnerable fare in that society. There is a clear message being reiterated to politicians, lawmakers and law enforcers that issue of poverty, drug addiction and prostitution need to be urgently addressed by them, if they are to demonstrate that they have learned anything from the Ipswich murders.

So yes, this true crime paperback will sell - to those fascinated by Serial Killers, perhaps to residents of the Ipswich area and to many others attracted by the attention grabbing cover. If good truly can come out of evil, let's hope `Hunting Evil' also sells to those who can instigate the changes required in our society - in the memory of Gemma, Tania, Anneli, Annette and Paula - to ensure there is never another such series of murders as those which took place in Ipswich in 2006.

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Rating: - This co-authored hodge-podge fails ...
The story of the Ipswich killer Steve Wright has the makings of a classic true crime tale: the melancholy setting, the rate at which he murdered, with touches of the grotesque. There is also the underlying story of prostition in Britain. Who would have thought a town like Ipswich even had a red light area? The story also has the benefit of a clean ending: the killer is caught, tried and convicted.

However, as is often the case with co-written books, true crime and otherwise, HUNTING EVIL (hackneyed title by the way) is a hodge-podge. The journalist Paul Harrison has a good story to tell and when he actually relates his story in a simple straightforward way -- the murders, police investigation, arrest and so forth -- this is compelling. In recognition of this, I give the book three rather than two stars. Unfortunately, his co-author Professor David Wilson (whoever he may be) has a different book in mind: an analysys of serial killers, and a sociological look at prostitution in Britain.

If one or other author had been able to exert authority on this project, i.e. taken charge of it, a cohesive book could have been written, combining Harrison's narrative and Wilson's analyis. Both have their place. But they have to be melded into a smooth read. Unfortunately, the authors settle for writing individual chapters which are alternated in the most off-putting way: Wilson's text book, university lecture stuff cheek by jowl with Harrison's serviceable journalism.

When the authors come together, as they seem to do occasionally, they write about themselves awkwardly as "We." "We believe that the Ipswich murders stand as a dreadful symbol ..." Their Introduction, from which I quote, is perhaps the worst part of the book. It reads as if it may have been part of the original proposal they put together for the publisher. We will do this, we will do that, etc. This has no place in a finished book. There is however evidence of padding in this slim volume. The authors have struggled to fill 300 pages and seem to have put in some text just because they needed the word count. There is quite a bit of repetition, too.

In fact, structure is this book's big problem. Their main character is Steve Wright, of course. He is there Nilsen, their Sutcliffe. We should know the basic facts about him in chapter one, then follow him through murder, detection, trial and conviction. Instead we get bits of his story interspersed with analysis, with vital information about his background - such as his date of birth, absurdly - only emerging after the halfway point. This is very unsatisfactory. As is the fact that Wright remains largely unexplained at the end. We don't know what he did, really, or why he did it. And he is not a fascinatingly enigmatic killer. He is dull.

In short, this is far from being a great true crime book. It is not even a good true crime book. It could have been, should have been, but is in truth a missed opportunity.