The Mad Sculptor, Harold Schechter

The Mad Sculptor, Harold Schechter
Author: Harold Schechter
Publisher: Zeus
Pages: 384
Format: Paperback
ISBN-10: 178185307X
ISBN-13: 9781781853078
Publisher: eBook | Hardcover | Paperback
The Mad Sculptor
3 stars

On Easter Sunday 1937, Bob Irwin - a handsome, failing sculptor with a history of depression and psychopathic episodes - commited a grisly triple murder. Creeping back to the flat of his ex-landlady in a swish New York borough, Irwin killed her, her lodger, and her stunning daughter Ronnie with an ice-pick, an apparently motiveless homicide that would shock the entire country.
I read a lot of crime fiction but never realized there is a whole world of true crime books describing real crimes as if it was fiction. At least that is how this book reads. Realizing it is all based on true events and no fiction is included made it even more gruesome and yes I will admit more entertaining to read. Robert George Irwin is on various lists of most gruesome high profiled killers. Still his numbers are not high and to call his murders really gruesome... I guess the biggest impact his murders had was the realization that people like Robert exist. Psychopaths, people who are so damaged psychologically that they can justify to kill others. A lot of research was done in that time and a lot of it is written in this book making it a really interesting insight in possible motivations Robert could have to make his moves.


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