Blood Bath

August 1, 2009
A cruel, cool customer who viscerally enjoys killing, Derrick Todd Lee is a very bad malefactor, even by the bloody standards of American serial killers. After some matter-of-fact introductory chapters filling in main players backstories, Mustafa and company get down to the grisly business of Lees criminal trajectory. The writing is stark; the tone, particularly early on, a bit confrontational but fitting. The story told isnt pretty, to be sure, but, an engrossing marriage of gore and police procedure, is masterfully paced to make loathing and suspense near palpable, while the narrative chugs ahead with sufficient momentum. Lee, whose mental competence to stand trial was challenged in court, was a known quantity to Baton Rouge police. A notably sharp dresser who openly kept a wife and a girlfriend, hed been convicted of simple burglary in July 1993 and was a known Peeping Tom when police fingered him as the likely killer of at least seven women. This disturbing read deserves a berth in grittier true-crime collections.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)