As acclaimed psychological researcher and author David Buss writes,
People are mesmerized by murder. It commands our attention like no other
human phenomenon, and those touched by its ugly tendrils never forget.
Though we may like to believe that murderers are pathological misfits
and hardened criminals, the vast majority of murders are committed by
people who, until the day they kill, would seem to be perfectly normal.
David Buss's pioneering work has made major national news in the past,
and this provocative book is sure to generate a storm of attention.
The Murderer Next Door is a riveting look into the dark underworld
of the human psyche--an astonishing exploration of when and why we kill
and what might push any one of us over the edge. A leader in the
innovative field of evolutionary psychology, Buss conducted an
unprecedented set of studies investigating the underlying motives and
circumstances of murders, from the bizarre outlier cases of serial
killers to those of the friendly next-door neighbor who one day kills
his wife.
Reporting on findings that are often startling and counterintuitive--the
younger woman involved in a love triangle is at a high risk of being
killed--he puts forth a bold new general theory of homicide, arguing
that the human psyche has evolved specialized adaptations whose function
is to kill. Taking readers through the surprising twists and turns of
the evolutionary logic of murder, he explains exactly when each of us is
most at risk, both of being murdered and of becoming a murderer. His
findings about the high-risk situations alone will be news making.
Featuring gripping storytelling about specific murder cases--including a
never used FBI file of more than 400,000 murders and a highly detailed
study of 400 murders conducted by Buss in collaboration with a forensic
psychiatrist, and a pioneering investigation of homicidal fantasies in
which Buss found that 91 percent of men and 84 percent of women have had
at least one such vivid fantasy--The Murderer Next Door will be
necessary reading for those who have been fascinated by books on
profiling, lovers of true crime and murder mysteries, as well as readers
intrigued by the inner workings of the human mind.
