True Crime Book Review: Death by Cannibal Offers a Chilling Reading Experience

THEY VIOLATED ONE OF CIVILIZED SOCIETY’S MOST SACRED TABOOS.
They’re an anathema even in the twisted world of serial murder. More frightening still, the cannibal killer has hidden behind a mask of normalcy, as witnessed in these shocking profiles of five American men who ate their victims . . .
 

Gary Heidnik, the financial wizard whose Philadelphia home was a dungeon of sexual slavery, torture, and diabolical feasts.
 

Albert Fentress, a mild-mannered schoolteacher who lured a teenage boy into the inescapable darkness of his secret obsessions.
 

John Weber, a country boy who found an outlet for his sick fantasies when he ate his teenage sister-in-law for dinner.
 

Nathaniel Bar-Jonah, a portly gourmand and aspiring chef who allegedly shared the remains of his prey with unsuspecting friends.
 

Marc Sappington, a high school dropout who aspired to outdo his idol, Jeffrey Dahmer, by embarking on a three-day feeding frenzy.
 

Drawn from revealing interviews with family members, authorities, and the killers themselves, Death by Cannibal exposes the secrets behind the most fiendish compulsion of them all.
 

Also—where does desire end and true crime begin? New details on the unprecedented case of  

Gilberto Valle, the New York City cop sentenced to life in prison for harboring only fantasies—of kidnapping up to a hundred women and of eating “girl meat.”
INCLUDES PHOTOGRAPHS

------------------------------

 Even for the most die-hard true crime fan such as yours truly, this book was extremely hard to read. It was well written despite several main flaws (we'll detail those later), but what made it so hard to read was the grotesque details. I've read a lot of true crime books, but this was by far the most graphic. 

Death by Cannibal features four lesser known Cannibals that read as if they came out of  a Stephen King novel. I take that back...

Even Stephen King couldn't write monsters this hellish!

There were moments in this book that I had to actually close the pages, take a deep breath and begin reading again. There were many times I wondered why I was even reading it, but once you start it feels like a car crash. It's impossible to look away from. 

Don't worry about the 'Includes photographs' stamp on the front of the book. The photos are only of the killers and where they live. This labels seems to have been put on the book to get people to buy it and for shock value. What stood out to me the most about the photographs were how ordinary the killers look. These men could easily be your neighbors and you would suspect them of nothing more than being a little strange. It is truly hard to believe people that evil and that demented actually exist. There were moments I literally felt ill, but for some strange reason kept reading anyways.

The biggest pit fall of this book was the fact that in the first two stories, there were details that were repeated several times. The repetitiveness was annoying because at times it felt like the author was just trying to fill a word count. Also, the chapters kept getting shorter and shorter. The first story was 93 pages long but, the last story was only 27 pages. It felt like the author padded the earlier stories with extra details such as historical facts, that didn't really need to be there. Then, he got bored at the end and just quickly finished the book. Although this didn't ruin the reading experience completely, it was totally noticeable and brought down the book's pacing.

Death by Cannibal  is a book I can only recommend to those who have extremely strong stomachs and don't scare easily. This shouldn't be your first true crime book, but if you've been around the block a few times, definitely check it out! 

Grab Your Copy here