Voodoo Killers: Slavery, Sorcery and the Supernatural by Joseph Carlson

Voodoo Killers: Slavery, Sorcery and the Supernatural Reviews

• 
  Siân

  Amongst an eclectic compilation of gruesome historic facts, recollections and folklore from around the world are human sacrifice, kidnapping, slavery, torture, rape, cannibalism, vampirism, the occult, witchcraft, voodoo, Satanism, religious persecution, hate crimes, megalomaniacal cults, and murders with a supernatural twist.
  Included are the Spanish Inquisition, the Salem Witch Trials, the Ku Klux Klan, serial killers (Zodiac, Son of Sam, Robert Berdella), the Manson Family, and Josef Fritzl.
  Just enough to whet the appetite and send you off for further reading.
  
• 
  Laurence O'Bryan

  About fifty pages in. Amazing facts about the murderous sects that roam the world.
  
  Some people were/are pure evil and humanity is not always something to be proud about.
  
  Some small editing errors show a sloppy approach by the publisher, but they are few and far between.
• 
  Lauren

  Very historically interesting, lots of grammatical errors and wording mistakes. Did anyone actually read or edit the final copy before it was published?
• 
  Kate

  This book is poor in so many areas, I can't believe a publisher like Little Brown went anywhere near it.
  First of all, the title is totally misleading. Of all the entries I think there may be 2 or 3 that touch on voodoo. I full expect the title is insulting to practitioners of voodoo as in my limited understanding, it is not, as has been misrepresented in Hollywood etc, a religion that promotes killing or sacrifice of any kind. Some (most) of the entries included under each subheading don't remotely correlate; for example, under Ritual Murder and Satanic Killing, there are two instances of mass suicide. The author has clearly just collected a bunch of particularly brutal crimes and tried to shoehorn them into categories that make zero sense.
  The content of each entry reads like lazy, sensationalist journalism - you'd hear similar from a ghost tour leader. The author's constant correlation between satanic murders and heavy metal is particularly irksome; 99% of my friends are into metal or rock music, most have long hair and dress in black and I can assure you they're a happy, healthy bunch of people. As for the constant assertion that this or that person 'dressed as a Goth' ...... Aaaarrgh!! We don't dress as 'Goths' - that's an ancient tribe. We are 'goths' - part of an alternative subculture centred on our love of goth music. We don't 'cake our faces' in make up and we certainly don't all worship the devil!!
  And then on top of it all, we have the typos, misspellings, endless misplaced commas, weird grammar... did NOBODY proofread this thing???
  Gah. What a mess.
• 
  Kimberly

  HOW do books get printed without any kind of proofreading or editing? This was horrible. The stories didn't really have anything to do with the title, vague references, maybe. Everyone involved with putting this book out should be ashamed of this one.
• 
  Jaymin Ewens

  Whoever edited this should be shot. The book was interesting, but poorly titled. Very little Voodoo. There was also no citation or bibliography of any kind.
• 
  Jessica

  Not particularly accurate, but it's a good, interesting read laid out in a way that makes you want to keep those pages turning...
• 
  Kay

  this is a very good book actually more of a history book than anything scary but good none the less.
• 
  Sarah

  Not as well written as it could have been. I think the author tried to fit too much information into short snippets. Still an interesting read though.