Tangled Web UK Review August 2008
Cannibals by
Jimmy Lee Shreeve
hbk out May 08
Published by Blake Pub
at £17.99
We all need protein in our diet but most of us balk at frying a friend or roasting a relative. Unfortunately the men and women in Cannibals betrayed no such squeamishness. Wealthy student Issei Sagawa shot an academic acquaintance and turned her into supper whilst Russian teacher Andre Chikatilo strangled his victims and munched his way through their entrails, taking particular pleasure in the uterus.
The book explores the lives of British, Australian, American, German, Russian and Japanese flesh eaters who killed in order to have homosapien on the menu. Often there was a sexual aspect to the murders, at other times a sadistic one. Worryingly, several of these men are now free, despite the fact that psychiatrists fear they will kill again.
Author Jimmy Lee Shreeve corresponded with, and eventually met, a self-proclaimed London-based cannibal called Eric who alleged that he sliced his snacks from corpses in mortuaries. Eric was convinced that he was possessed by demons, so a shaman performed an exorcism and the man went home proclaiming himself cured. Most of the other cannibals also blamed evil entities for their unhealthy hunger, though Lee Shreeve’s wife settles for a more rational explanation, noting ‘they had pretty loveless upbringings... They didn’t get any love so they became cold and detached themselves.’
I also opt for a secular perspective when interviewed in the final section, The Cannibal Interviews. (Jimmy wanted my take on the subject as a true crime author, not a cannibal...) A film maker and a method actor who have studied cannibalism are also interviewed.
Featuring most of the well-known - and many lesser known - cannibalistic murders of recent years, and laced with Lee Shreeve’s trademark humour, this book will tell you all that you ever need to know about humans who kill and eat their own kind.
(
Carol Anne Davis
Author of Children Who Kill)
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