Redhanded: an exploration of criminals, cannibals, cults, and what makes a killer tick

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Running Press
Publication Date
2021.
Language
English
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2021 Listeners' Choice British Podcast Awards WinnerBased off Hannah Maguire and Suruthi Bala's popular podcast of the same name, RedHanded explores real-life true crime cases to help answer once and for all if a killer is born or made.After meeting at a house party in London, where they discovered a mutual obsession for all things true crime, Suruthi Bala and Hannah Maguire drunkenly promised to one day start their own murder podcast. Six weeks later they ordered their first microphones and the rest is history. From the hosts of the hit podcast RedHanded (dubbed by Anna Paquin as her “all- time favorite true crime podcast”), Bala and Maguire have amassed a cult following of “spooky bitches.”What is it about killers, cults, and cannibals that capture our imaginations even as they terrify and disturb us? Do we find these stories endlessly and equally compelling and frightening, because they hold up a mirror to society’s failings and to the horrors that we humans are capable of? RedHanded rejects the outdated narrative of killers as monsters and that a victim “was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Instead, it dissects the stories of killers in a way that challenges perceptions and asks the hard questions about society, gender, poverty, culture, and even our politics.With their trademark humor, research on real-life cases, and unflinching analysis of what makes a criminal, Bala and Maguire take you through what drives the most extreme of human behavior to find out once and for all: what makes a killer tick?

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ISBN
9780762473793
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LJ Express Reviews

Maguire and Bala, cohosts of the UK true crime podcast Redhanded, investigate what makes a murderer. True crime fans will draw immediate comparisons to the book Stay Sexy and Don't Get Murdered, by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark, hosts of My Favorite Murder. The two podcasts have similar origin stories, but Maguire and Bala forgo autobiography and focus instead on the killers themselves. Their conversational work explores familiar topics such as nature vs. nurture and the insanity defense. Killers are categorized as thrill-seeking, mission-oriented, power-driven, or visionary. The authors devote a chapter to the topic of misogyny and argue that law enforcement and the public at large fail to see misogyny for the killer ideology that it is, given its ubiquity. Killer couples get their own chapter, as do cults. Sidebars on, for instance, polygraph tests and postpartum psychosis are sprinkled throughout the text. Maguire and Bala also acknowledge that there is an empathy gap for victims who are sex workers, who are LGBTQIA+ , or who experience homelessness. VERDICT The ideas discussed here are a bit shopworn, but fans of the authors' podcast and readers new to true crime may find it a helpful primer.—Barrie Olmstead, Lewiston P.L., ID

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Copyright 2021 LJExpress.
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