CAT AND MOUSE; Mind Games with a Serial Killer

Based on interviews with William "Billy" Lester Suff, convicted in 1995 of torturing, maiming, and murdering twelve prostitutes in California, a psychological study of Suff traces his sordid career and explores his unflappable duplicity.

A lawyer and television writer tries to write the story of a real killer. Lane, whose credits include scripts for Hart to Hart and Star Trek: The Next Generation, received a collect call one night from convicted killer Suff, currently on California's death row for murdering prostitutes (he was convicted of 12 murders and suspected of more). Lane eventually became Suff's attorney. But this isn't so much a history of the case as the record of an encounter with ``a living, breathing serial killer.'' Lane takes an unaccountably cocky attitude that he will reveal the truth about Suff. This jumble begins with Lane's statement that ``there are no `facts' in this book. . . . Everything is impression,'' and continues with a sickening chart detailing what kind of evidence was found on the bodies of Suff's victims. The book also includes some of Suff's short stories and excerpts from an odd cookbook that don't tell us much about the mind of a serial killer. Though Lane has many murder victims to discuss--including one of Suff's own children--he scarcely describes them. Suff, according to police and prosecutors, was a uniquely talented killer who approached the mutilation of his victims as though it were art. He roamed the streets of Riverside, Calif., in his van, looking for prostitutes to kill, all the while maintaining a fairly normal life. Lane actually has a few valid things to say about the killings, but spends much of his time analyzing himself in the wake of a horrible accident in which he killed his best friend, brother, and mother. While Suff's case clearly raises some interesting questions about the nature of madness and violence, and about the factors that create a serial killer, Lane doesn't seriously address them, or arrive at any useful conclusions. (photos, not seen) (First printing of 40,000; author tour) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

After Bill Suff, known as the Riverside Prostitute Strangler, was convicted of mutilating and murdering 12 Southern California women from 1989 to 1991, he was interviewed extensively by TV writer Lane, who is also Suff's acting attorney. Short on factual narrative and heavy on the author's impressions, the result is not a typical true-crime story. By including 150 pages of Suff's original writings, Lane achieves his goal of humanizing Suff "despite his deeds"?although the presence of Suff's cookbook, "Bill's Vittles and Fixin's," is bizarre. The author is less adept at explaining Suff's terrible crimes and compulsions. Lane does not offer a standard psychiatric analysis, but Suff appears to be a sadistic psychopath adamantly proclaiming his innocence, the evidence be damned. The "cooperation" of such a personality is practically worthless?a "mind game" the author can't win. Despite its drawbacks, this book is likely to attract its share of readers.?Gregor A. Preston, formerly with Univ. of California Lib., Davis
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.