Serial and Mass Murder

"As anyone who’s spent much time reading about serial killers, mass murderers, or homicide in general knows, the existing research tends to focus on solo male offenders who look an awful lot like Ted Bundy. Elizabeth Gurian’s work fills a huge gap in the field by bringing women, minorities, partnered offenders, and international ones into the dialogue. While there may always be something about violent crime that remains unknowable, Gurian’s knack for examining a multitude of multicide offenders (and her refreshing rejection of stale typologies like ""Black Widow"") makes this book a great gift to anyone who’s longed for a more holistic, comprehensive examination of these almost folkloric figures. —Tori Telfer, Author of Lady Killers: Deadly Women Throughout History ...[P]recisely because it explores the multidimensionality of murder, Serial and Mass Murder offers detailed and above all differentiated insights into a still not fully understood phenomenon by its pluralistic and abstract dissection. Although nominally addressed at ‘scholars and students interested in criminal justice, criminology, psychology, or law’ as the publisher indicates and perhaps challenging for readers outside of these disciplines, this book about multicide could nonetheless also be recommended to an audience consisting of the more ambitious enthusiasts of true crime as well as literary and cultural scholars interested in the (mis)representation of said crimes. The latter scholars will find a refreshing perspective differing from the seductive tendency to create definitive but reductive typologies in their own fields, while creative writers might find inspiration to deviate from perpetual stereotypes. —Moritz Maier, Crime Fiction Studies 3.1 (2022): 75-77"