Happy Like Murderers. Gordon Burn

by Gordon Burn

Book Overview

An account of two people - Fred and Rose West - who lived together, raised (and killed) children, provided sexual services for anyone interested, and pretended to provide social services for single... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0571197574
• ISBN13: 9780571197576
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Length: 468 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Interesting and different

This book is the first true crime I've read in ages that took a different approach to story-telling. It's unusual, told almost colloquially as if someone were verbally recounting it. I noticed the repetition that someone else in a review below complained about, and I was intially taken aback by it, but now I believe it was purposeful and effective, adding to the impression that someone's telling the story to you. If a person recounts a long complicated story, it's inevitable that portions will be repeated - that's the impression I got. I love the way it familiarizes the reader in detail with the lives of others in the Wests' orbit - it makes the whole story three dimensional, and thus far more moving.

The Life and Times of a Grotesque kind of "family"

This is one of the most grotesquely fascinating books I have ever read in my life. It is about a grotesque man, Fred West and his equally grotesque wife Rosemary West, two serial killers born and bred in the UK.Fred and Rosemary West will long be remembered for their systematic abuse (and murder) of their own children (and others) and how, for many years they evaded being discovered because of the indifferent society they lived in. Gordon Burn takes his readers into a modern day Heart of Darkness in which there is no happy ending, only survivors who will never be the same again.This is not an easy book to read, it starts in a peculiar way, far removed from the West family themselves, in a way it is quite detached from Fred and Rosemary, and I think the author did this on purpose. Instead the book looks at the lives of people who at first seem to have nothing to do with the storyline, but then the threads are carefully drawn in, showing the connections to Fred and Rosemary West and how evil can spread its tentacles in and too the most unlikely of places. This is a horror story that turns your stomach because it is a true horror story, of how a man and a woman could get away with cold blooded and totally calculated murder for years.This book is not for the faint hearted or squeamish; it is brutal, and explicit in its search for truth and understanding. It is well written, savagely analytical and totally mesmerising from beginning to end. It is a book that I can recommend but only if you have the stomach to read it.

Excellent account

If you are at all interested in the appalling crimes of Fred and Rosemary West, this is a must have for your library. Books about Fred and Rose are rare (I have only counted 6 titles). Others include: "Fred and Rose", "She Must Have Known", "The Corpse Garden", and "Out of the Shadows". "Happy Like Murderers" gives a rich look into the lives of these sick individuals.