By Reason of Insanity

Shane Stevens

ISBN 10: 0881846090 / ISBN 13: 9780881846096

Published by Carroll & Graf Pub March 1990, 1990

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 33254

Bibliographic Details

• Title: By Reason of Insanity
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf Pub March 1990
• Publication Date: 1990
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0881846090
• ISBN 13: 9780881846096
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Condition: Used
• Seller catalogs:
  • Fiction

About this title

Synopsis

Thomas Bishop was 25 when he escaped from an institution for the criminally insane. Behind was a grotesque history of pain, murder and abiding rage. Ahead lay a path of vengeance, a reign of terror that only the greatest manhunt in U.S. history could stop. Reissue.

Review

Back in the '70s, when the term "serial killer" wasn't yet popular, Shane Stevens wrote this long, exquisitely detailed novel about a psychopathic murderer. Thomas Bishop escapes from an insane asylum at age 25 and begins what he fully intends to be a historic career as a multiple murderer. He is meticulous, intelligent, conscious of what he is doing, and utterly amoral. And we are inside his head, every step of the way--a welcome approach compared to contemporary works that focus on a detective or reporter protagonist. The New York Times called it "violent realism . . . extremely effective."