The misbegotten son: a serial killer and his victims :the true story of Arthur J. Shaw cross /

A veteran true-crime writer brings all his professionalism to bear on this gripping reconstruction and analysis of the series of killings perpetrated by one Arthur Shawcross in the 1980s. In and around Rochester, New York, Shawcross, out on parole as a child molester and killer, murdered approximately a dozen prostitutes. Into his narrative of these events, Olsen weaves first-person accounts by Shawcross himself, relatives, ex-wives, and legal and psychological experts involved in the case. The amount of detail is rather excessive, but readers of true crime will relish every bit of it as Olsen digs into Shawcross' past to find roots of his violent behavior and propensity for fantasy; documents the police investigation and the trial that put him behind bars; and profiles each of his victims in an effort to make them more than mere statistics. Expect high demand. (Reviewed Jan 15, 1993)0385299362Brad Hooper

An experienced and skilled writer, Olsen ( Predator ) proves himself equal to the formidable task of studying serial killer Arthur Shawcross. Born in 1945 in upstate New York, Shawcross was perceived as different even in childhood (his classmates dubbed him ``Oddie,'' and elementary school officials called for mental health evaluations). In the early '70s he murdered two children and was sentenced to up to 25 years in prison; he served less than 15 years before he was paroled in 1987. He was difficult to place--townspeople drove him out as soon as his past became known. After three such episodes, parole officials sent him surreptitiously to Rochester, N.Y., where he killed at least 11 prostitutes. He was arrested in 1990 and eventually sentenced to 250 years in prison. During the trial, he claimed that he had been physically and sexually abused by his mother (untrue, the authorities concluded) and that he had committed horrible atrocities in Vietnam (probably untrue). He did not fit the classic pattern of the sociopath, nor did he seem either schizophrenic or paranoid. It remained for psychiatrist Richard Kraus to hypothesize that physiology was the basis for Shawcross's behavior--he diagnosed Shawcross as suffering from a metabolic ailment known as pyroluria and an abnormal genetic constitution. Told by Olsen with contributions from others affected by Shawcross's crimes, the story is a triumph of true-crime writing. Literary Guild, Doubleday Book Club and True Crime Book Club selections; optioned for a TV miniseries; author tour. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Arthur Shawcross, the ``misbegotten son,'' was convicted in 1990 of the serial murders of nine prostitutes in Rochester, New York. Olsen, author of Predator ( LJ 4/1/91), recounts Shawcross's story through well-organized interviews with his family, his victims' families, and the police. But the book is not solely a true crime account; it is, in addition, a medical mystery. Was there some flaw in Shawcross's makeup that caused him to kill? The unexpected hero is psychiatrist Richard Kraus, who tests and interrogates his client until he comes up with a diagnosis. ``Shawcross was misbegotten, doomed to be different from the beginning.'' He is ``a gray little plexus of misery . . . just sad.'' Highly recommended for true crime collections.-- Frances Sandiford, Green Haven Correctional Facility Lib., Stormville, N.Y. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Mesmerizing, mournful portrait of serial-killer/rapist Arthur Shawcross--who also practiced necrophilia and cannibalism--that digs deep to lay his tortured psyche bare. Olsen has profiled numerous madmen before (Predator, 1991, etc.) but rarely with such diligence--or one so heinous. He presents Shawcross's story in oral-history form, binding together testimony from the killer (mostly Q&A transcripts), cops, psychiatrists, relatives of Shawcross's victims, etc., with his own extensive narration. An expert storyteller, Olsen begins with high melodrama: the disappearance in 1972 in Watertown, New York, of ten-year-old Jack Blake--Shawcross's first victim, raped, mutilated, and killed. Despite the insistence of Jack's mother that neighbor Shawcross--then a notably eccentric 27-year-old Vietnam vet--had slain her boy, it took a second killing, of a local girl, to put Shawcross behind bars for a presumed 25 years. But after 14 years, the killer convinced a parole board of his rehabilitation and was freed. Moving to Rochester and marrying a prison pen-pal, Shawcross went on a years'-long spree of killing prostitutes. Dogged police work and a lucky break finally did him in. Olsen closely details Shawcross's gruesome crimes and the cops' counterpoint, but his focus is on motivation: What made Shawcross kill? The author excavates the murderer's early years, uncovering an unhappy home but no striking abuse; explores Shawcross's own rational--that he became a killer in Vietnam--and finds his stories of jungle savagery to be tall tales; and locates only a few clues in Shawcross's accounts of his murders. The unexpected answer is revealed at book's end, in testimony from a psychiatrist who discovered behind the killer's compulsion a terrible biological imperative: an extra Y chromosome and a rare chemical imbalance. Olsen explains Shawcross without excusing him, creating an unforgettable portrait, horrifying yet compassionate, of a doomed modern-day monster.