The sexualized serial murder of women by men is the subject of this
provocative book. Jane Caputi argues that the sensationalized murders by
men such as Jack the Ripper, Son of Sam, Hillside Strangler, and the
Yorkshire Ripper represent a contemporary genre of sexually political
crimes. The awful deeds function as a form of patriarchal terrorism,
disappearing women at a rate of some four thousand annually in the
United States alone.
Caputi asks us not only to name the phenomenon of sexually political
murder, but to recognize sex crime in all of its various interconnecting
manifestations."