Joanna Schaffhausen, on the Myths of Serial Killer

Serial Killer Myths

Serial killers have been dramatized in books, television and movies hundreds of times. The portrait of the “Hollywood” serial killer as a brilliant man stalking you with a knife from the bushes outside is a familiar one. But how realistic is it? The FBI has spent several decades studying serial offenders, and their results don’t always match up with the fictionalized portrayals. Here are a few serial killer tropes that have been busted by law enforcement research. 

Serial Killers Are Compelled to Take Trophies from the Scene

In fiction, serial killers always take a memento, usually something personal from the victim, to remember the murder. Often, these items are used to link him to the victims when he is finally caught. In real life, only around half of serial killers take any kind of trophy from the scene. When they do take trophies, the objects can sometimes sustain them between attacks. Dennis Rader, who nicknamed himself “BTK,” went years between murders, during which 

They Are Smarter Than Average Humans

Serial killers can be difficult to catch for many reasons, but the one that shows up most often in film and TV is that they are brilliant. Individual serial killers have been highly intelligent—Ted Bundy is one example. However, the truth is that serial killers as a group are no smarter than the rest of us. Their average IQ is about 100, the same as the general population.

They Only Kill Strangers

Targeting strangers is another reason that Hollywood serial killers—and some real-life ones as well—are hard to catch. Police investigations rely on the relationship between the victim and the perpetrator to narrow the search field, and if there is no previous relationship, the killer can be nearly impossible to track down. However, in reality, the most common relationship between a serial killer and the victim is a business one (prostitution accounting for a good share of the ‘business’). But plenty of serial offenders target people close to them as well. Women, in particular, are most likely to kill a series of husbands or children. Sometimes, serial killers will murder both kinds of victims. Edmund Kemper killed hitch-hiking young women who were unknown to him but also family members, including his mother.

They Start with Lesser Violent Crimes and “Graduate” to Murder

In Hollywood serial killer tales, you will often see the profiler recommend that police check records for earlier violent assaults or rapes in which the victims survived because serial killers work their way up to actual murder. This does sometimes occur. However, when arrested for murder, most serial killers do not have a previous record for violent behavior. If they are in the system at all, it tends to be for non-violent offenses like peeping in windows or arson.

Once They Start Killing, They Won’t Stop

It’s a popular conception that, once serial killers start murdering, their attacks grow closer together as each kill fails to satisfy that initial “high.” Indeed, the line about how “He won’t stop until we catch him” gets repeated on nearly every TV show about a serial killer, but it turns out not to be true at all. Serial murderers can go years, even a decade or more, between kills. Gary Ridgway, known as the Green River Serial Killer, killed his last victim in 2003, but the previous one died in 1986, a gap of seventeen years. Sometimes, serial murderers stop entirely, possibly because they fear capture, are growing older and lack the physical strength for the crimes, or otherwise lose the biological/psychological “drive” to kill. Joseph D’Angelo, the accused Golden State Killer, ran a one-man crime spree up and down the state of California before going quiet in the late 1980s. Perhaps his recent arrest, decades after his crimes, will shed some light onto why certain offenders give up their murderous ways.

All The Best Lies by Joanna Schaffhausen published by Titan Books (Out Now)

 FBI agent Reed Markham is haunted by one painful unsolved mystery: who murdered his

mother, and his powerful adoptive father, state senator Angus Markham. Now Reed has to wonder if his mother's killer is uncomfortably close to home. Reed enlists his friend, suspended cop Ellery Hathaway, to join his quest in Vegas. Ellery has experience with both troubled families and diabolical murderers, having narrowly escaped from each of them. Far from home and relying only on each other, Reed and Ellery discover young Camilla had snared the attention of dangerous men, any of whom might have wanted to shut her up for good. They start tracing his twisted family history, knowing the path leads back to a vicious killer-one who has been hiding in plain sight for forty years and isn't about to give up now.

Books to Look forward to from TItan Publishing (Incl Hard Case Crime)

January 2019

Police officer Ellery Hathaway is on involuntary leave from her job because she shot a murderer in cold blood and refuses to apologize for it. Forced into group therapy for victims of violent crime, Ellery immediately finds higher priorities than “getting in touch with her feelings.”  For one, she suspects a fellow group member may have helped to convict the wrong man for a deadly arson incident years ago. For another, Ellery gets entangled in the desperate requests of a woman who survived a brutal rape. He is still out there, this man with the spider-like ability to climb through bedroom windows. Ignoring all warnings, Ellery starts digging around in everyone’s past but her own – a move that, at best, could put her out of work permanently, and at worst, could put her in the city morgue.  No Mercy is by Joanna Schaffhausen

February 2019

For years, The Joker, Clown Prince of Crime, has been caught in a dance of violence with his greatest nemesis, the Batman. Escaping Arkham Asylum, he plots his most lethal caper. This will be the ultimate punch line… his KILLING JOKE.  Meanwhile, as Batman and Batgirl pursue the ruthless criminals of Gotham City, Commissioner James Gordon and Detective Harvey Bullock take on a cartel distributing “giggle sniff,” a drug derived from a venom created by The Joker. A rapid-fire sequence of events spirals together to threaten Batman’s closest friends and allies, and locks the two eternal foes in their ultimate death match. The Killing Joke is by Christa Faust and Gary Phillips.

Brothers Keepers is by Donald E Westlake.  What will a group of monks do when their two-century-old monastery in New York City is threatened with demolition to make room for a new high-rise? Anything they have to. “Thou Shalt Not Steal” is only the first of the Commandments to be broken as the saintly face off against the unscrupulous over that most sacred of relics, a Park Avenue address.  Returning to bookstores for the first time in three decades, Brothers Keepers offers not only a master class in comedy from one of the most beloved mystery writers of all time but also a surprisingly heartfelt meditation on loss, temptation, and how we treat our fellow man.

Sherlock Holmes has just uncovered the truth about the theft of a priceless ruby. The wealthy Lady Damury staged the theft and tried to frame her husband – but just as Holmes reveals the truth, Lady Damury is found murdered. Holmes deduces that this is no crime of passion, but the work of a ruthless killer with no connection to the jewel. With reports of a man in a strange, trance-like state, Holmes finds himself entangled in a dangerous game of cat and mouse with the sinister Dr Caligari…  The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Instrument of Death is by David Stuart Davis.

Batman the Court of Owls is by Greg Cox.  For generations, an apocryphal cabal has controlled Gotham from the shadows, wielding fear and violence through its undead assassins, the Talons. The Court of Owls.  Dating back centuries, its leaders are men and women of wealth and influence who meet in secrecy, hiding their identities behind stark white masks. Employing science and alchemy, they sought to kill Bruce Wayne who, as Batman, dealt them their greatest defeats. Even then they faded back into the darkness, and he could not eliminate them entirely.  Now, Gotham City is plagued with a series of brutal murders in which mutilated bodies are burned almost beyond recognition. Batman and his allies—including Nightwing and Batgirl—quickly realize that the Talons have returned, yet the reason for the killings remains tauntingly unknown.  As the heroes seek answers, their path stretches back more than a century. Should the Owls obtain what they seek, it could grant them power that no one could counter. With each moment that passes, more victims appear.  Batman must stop the Talons before they kill again.

The Revenant Express: A Newbury & Hobbes Investigation is by George Mann.  Sir Maurice Newbury is bereft as his trusty assistant Veronica Hobbes lies dying with a wounded heart. Newbury and Veronica’s sister Amelia must take a sleeper train across Europe to St. Petersberg to claim a clockwork heart that Newbury has commissioned from

Faberge to save Veronica from a life trapped in limbo.  No sooner do they take off then sinister goings-on start to plague the train, and it is discovered that an old villain, thought dead, is also on board and seeking revenge. Can Newbury and Amelia defeat him and get the clockwork organ back to the Fixer in time to save Veronica? And can they do so without Newbury going so far into the dark side of occult magic that he can never return?  Meanwhile, Sir Charles Bainbridge is the only one of their team left in London to struggle with a case involving a series of horrific crimes. Someone is kidnapping prominent men and infecting them with the Revenant plague, leaving them chained in various locations around the city. But why?  It’s a rousing chase to save both London and Veronica. Will these brave detectives be up to the task?

This Body’s not Big Enough for Both of Us is by Edgar Cantero. In a dingy office in Fisherman’s Wharf, the glass panel in the door bears the names of A. Kimrean and Z. Kimrean, Private Eyes. Behind the door there is only one desk, one chair, one scrawny androgynous P.I. in a tank top and skimpy waistcoat. A.Z., as they are collectively known, are twin brother and sister. He’s pure misanthropic logic, she’s wild hedonistic creativity. The Kimreans have been locked in mortal battle since they were in utero, which is tricky because they, very literally, share one single body. That’s right. One body, two pilots. The mystery and absurdity of how Kimrean functions, and how they subvert every plotline, twist, explosion, and gunshot – and confuse every cop, neckless thug, cartel boss, ninja, and femme fatale – in the book is pure Cantero magic.  Someone is murdering the sons of the ruthless drug cartel boss known as the Lyon in the biggest baddest town in California: San Carnal. The notorious A.Z. Kimrean must go to the sin-soaked, palm-tree-lined streets of San Carnal, infiltrate the Lyon’s inner circle, and find out who is targeting his heirs, and while they are at it, rescue an undercover cop in too deep, deal with a plucky young stowaway, and stop a major gang war from engulfing California. They’ll face every plot device and break every rule Elmore Leonard wrote before they can crack the case, if they don’t kill each other (themselves) first.  This Body’s Not Big Enough for Both of Us is a brilliantly subversive and comic thriller celebrating noir detectives, Die Hard, Fast & Furious, and the worst case of sibling rivalry, that can only come from the mind of Edgar Cantero.

Child psychiatrist Kate Wolfe’s world comes crashing down when one of her young patients commits suicide, so when a troubled girl is left at the hospital ward, she doubts her ability to help. But the girl knows things about Kate’s past, things she shouldn’t know, forcing Kate to face the murky evidence surrounding her own sister’s murder sixteen years before. A murder for which a man is about to be executed. Unearthing secrets about her own family, and forced to face both her difficult relationship with her distant father and the possibility that her mother might also have met a violent end, the shocking final twist brings Kate face to face with her deepest fear.  A Breath after Drowning is by Alice Blanchard.

A Baby’s Bones is by Rebecca Alexander.  Archaeologist Sage Westerfield has been called in to excavate an ancient well, and expects to find little more than soil and the odd piece of pottery. The disturbing discovery of a woman’s skeleton along with that of a baby – which shows signs of violence – makes it clear that she has stumbled onto an historical murder mystery. Heavily pregnant herself by her ex boyfriend, a married man, Sage feels drawn to investigating the circumstances surrounding the tiny bones. When the wife of the owner of Banstock Manor shows her the account of Vincent Garland, the steward of the estate in the 1580s, Sage learns of a destructive love triangle between an embroideress, an alchemist, and the Lord of the Manor’s daughter.  Yet there is more to the case than a four-hundred-year-old mystery. The owners of the cottage next to the well appear to be cursed with bad luck, the local vicar – with whom Sage is beginning a tentative relationship – is being plagued with abusive phone calls that come from inside the cottage, and Sage becomes convinced that she is being followed. Then a tragic death makes it all to clear that a modern murderer is at work, and Sage may well be his next target.

March 2019

Hammer is summoned to a meeting with Jamie Winters, United States Senator from New York, and Jamie’s lovely, very smart wife, Nicole, considered by many to be the power behind the throne. Winters is being blackmailed, and Hammer is given a list of suspects who may be behind the threats to the Senator’s career. But when the suspects begin to drop like flies, Hammer realises there is more to this case than just a salacious tape.  Mike Hammer: Murder My Love is by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins.

April 2019

On the 100th anniversary of prohibition, learn what really happened, The National Prohibition Act was passed, making it illegal across America to produce, distribute, or sell liquor. With this act, the U.S. Congress also created organized crime as we know it. Italian, Jewish, and Irish mobs sprang up to supply the suddenly illegal commodity to the millions of people still eager to drink it. Men like Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky, Dutch Schultz and Bugsy Siegel, Al Capone in Chicago and Nucky Johnson in Atlantic City, waged a brutal war for power in the streets and on the waterfronts. But if you think you already know this story…think again, since you’ve never seen it through the eyes of one of the mobsters who lived it.  Called “one of the most significant organized crime figures in the United States” by the U.S. District Attorney, Vincent “Jimmy Blue Eyes” Alo was just 15 years old when Prohibition became law. Over the next decade, Alo would work side by side with Lansky and Luciano as they navigated the brutal underworld of bootlegging, thievery and murder. Alo’s later career included prison time and the ultimate Mob tribute: being immortalized as “Johnny Ola” in The Godfather, Part II.  Introduced to the 91-year-old Alo living in retirement in Florida, Dylan Struzan based this book on more than 50 hours of recorded testimony—stories Alo had never shared, and that he forbid her to publish until “after I’m gone.” Alo died, peacefully, two months short of his 97th birthday. And now his stories—bracing and violent, full of intrigue and betrayal, hunger and hubris—can finally be told.  A Bloody Business is by Dylan Struzan and Drew Struzan.