Writing style
Direct · Essayistic · Journalistic
Killing for Company
True crime
- First published
- 1985
- Print length
- 324 pagesRandom House, 1993
Description
Brian Masters’s Killing for Company examines the crimes of Dennis Nilsen, a British serial killer whose murders became one of Britain’s most notorious criminal cases. Drawing on direct access to Nilsen and on the public record surrounding the investigation, Masters combines biography with an effort to understand the killer’s behavior and self-presentation. The book considers not only the crimes but also the difficulty of interpreting a subject who can shape the story told about him. It is a serious work of true crime concerned with evidence, personality, and the limits of psychological explanation.
Reading profile
About this profile
Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).
- Writing
- How much attention the sentences and language require.
- Ideas
- How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
- Structure
- How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
- Background knowledge
- Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
- Emotional intensity
- Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.
Pace
Measured
Tone
Cerebral · Dark · Detached · Unsettling
Structure
Chronological nonfiction
Focus
Character · Ideas · Information
Emotional intensity
5 / 5
Reading complexity
1–5 · higher means more demanding- Writing
- 3 / 5
- Ideas
- 4 / 5
- Structure
- 3 / 5
- Background knowledge
- 2 / 5
Themes
Book details
For the print edition listed above.
- Publisher
- Random House
- Language
- English
- ISBN
- 9780679424253
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