Killing for Company: The Story of a Man Addicted to Murder

by Brian Masters

Book Overview

Over a period of four years, Dennis Nilsen brutally murdered 15 men. He kept them as companions, talking to them and dressing them; then he buried them under his floor or dismembered them and flushed... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679424253
• ISBN13: 9780679424253
• Release Date: October 1993
• Publisher: Random House (NY)
• Length: 324 Pages
• Weight: 1.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Fascinating and horrifying

This book is a fascinating look at Dennis Nilson, a British man convicted of killing more than a dozen men and of attempting to kill many more. He strangled them and hid them under his floorboards until he dismembered and destroyed their bodies by fire or by flushing them down the toilet. The latter method was his final undoing as a problem in the sewage system alerted the police. The author attempts to understand WHY people like Nilson kill - he traces his childhood and adulthood in an attempt to understand his motivations. This book is hard reading at times, pretty academic, with lots of detailed psychological analysis, but it is a fascinating read, and I highly recommend it to true crime fans who want to go beyond just the story of the crimes, to the deep psychology of serial killers.

Dahmer Was Not Unique

After the Jeffrey Dahmer story broke, it was easy to think that no one else like him ever did or ever could have lived. After all, his motive for killing was bizarre to say the least-- he wanted to keep the men he picked up from leaving him. Then a few years later I picked up Brian Masters' Killing for Company almost by chance-- It was shocking: here was Dahmer's mirror image in a quiet British civil servant named Dennis Nilson. For some reason his crimes had not been publicized in the US. Nilson's crimes had been discovered in 1983 when the plumbing in his apartment buildng started to back up. Workmen were called in and discovered what looked like human flesh was the problem. The police questioned Nilson who confessed to his crime. He had been actively killing young men for 4 years and using their bodies in bizarre tableaus of domesticity and no one had noticed--would probably not have noticed had it not been that his plumbing couldn't handle his method of body disposal. Masters' book does a very good job of laying out Nilson's life. It is definitely not a quickie books churned out to take advantage of a sensational crime. If you are at all interesed in the darkest, most tabu areas of the human soul this is a very interesting read.

Jeffrey Dahmer might have been unusual but he wasn't unique

After the Jeffrey Dahmer story broke, it was easy to think that no one else like him ever did or ever could have lived. After all, his motive for killing was bizarre to say the least-- he wanted to keep the men he picked up from leaving him. Then a few years later I picked up Brian Masters' Killing for Company almost by chance-- It was shocking: here was Dahmer's mirror image in a quiet British civil servant named Dennis Nilson. For some reason his crimes had not been publicized in the US. Nilson's crimes had been discovered in 1983 when the plumbing in his apartment buildng started to back up. Workmen were called in and discovered what looked like human flesh was the problem. The police questioned Nilson who confessed to his crime. He had been actively killing young men for 4 years and using their bodies in bizarre tableaus of domesticity and no one had noticed--would probably not have noticed had it not been that his plumbing couldn't handle his method of body disposal. Masters' book does a very good job of laying out Nilson's life. It is definitely not a quickie books churned out to take advantage of a sensational crime. If you are at all interesed in the darkest, most tabu areas of the human soul this is a very interesting read.

Not for the squeamish

This book grabs your attention from the very first paragraph as it describes the events leading up to Dennis Nilsen's arrest. It explains in detail Nilsen's early years, and the profound psychological effect on the 6 year-old Nilsen when he sees his first dead body - the corpse of his beloved grandfather. Although Nilsen's crimes were horrific and, to us, senseless, you cannot help but feel immensely sorry for a man who is so consumed with loneliness that he prefers the company of a corpse to no company at all, hence the title of the book. One can but imagine what might have been if Nilsen had been able to form a stable and secure relationship with someone. An extremely interesting book for anyone interested in the criminal mind - but definitely not for the squeamish.