Times Square Torso Ripper by Peter Vronsky

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book starts out slow with Dr. Vronsky stating how on a cold, grey, overcast Sunday morning in NYC he bumps into a man coming out of the elevator in a seedy hotel in Times Square. The man was carrying a bag with hard round objects in them that felt like bowling balls. He later learns the man is Richard Cottingham and the hard round objects were his victims heads.

He then goes on to discuss the term ‘serial killer’ for another chapter, then Richard Cottingham’s conviction, like I said the book starts out slow, but as long as he takes to get to the “point” so to say, his prolonged introduction is not boring. He writes a lot about how Times Square was in those years, making the city a character in the book, but then it is New York City.

There is a lot of information in this book, what I like is the information is not repetitive, the trial is covered briefly.

Vronsky spends a lot of time on the psychology of killer using the phrase “reptilian brain”, not as an excuse, but as an explanation.

Overall I found this to be a very readable book and I recommend it to True Crime Fans.

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