Terrible beyond the author's misspelled words
936470
Between the misspelled words and the improper usage of punctuation, the author presents an untold story from information gathered it seems from Wikapedia, and reads like a high school book report. The author states Cleopatras father was Ptolemy XII Auletes. Auletes was a nick name meaning flute player. Cleopatras father was Ptolemy Neos Dionysus, the twelfth Ptolemy. (Ptolemy Neos Dionysos Theos Philopator Theos Philadelphos, to be exact) Mistakes like these are embarrassing - and the book is full of them. I would feel much better if I could give this book zero stars - but it needs to be star-rated.
4300610
I just needed to know that I wasn't the only one who thought this book {was not good}. First of all, the author DESPERATELY needs a spell checker. I'm a sucker for grammar and even in the beginning of the book there are so many errors. Vivian appears to be a stupid woman desperate for attention and some kind of stardom. I'm not finished yet, but this book is an ego boost as I am planning to publish one day. If Krantz can be published, I should have no problem.
962385
Despite Kavanagh's credentials in the author notes, CAPABLE OF MURDER is poorly plotted with numerous misspellings and thousands of unneeded adverbs and adjectives that any student writer would know better than to use. Either the writer is careless or the editor was unqualified. This book reads like a badly written romance novel and lacks cohesion. Suddenly the heroine is driving a car in a rain storm but the reader is never told how she came to have a car. This will teach me never to buy a book by this author or this publisher again.
4398129
I'm glad I only paid $.99 for this book.  The basic story was okay, but the text was riddled with misspelled words, incorrectly used words, extra words that made no sense, and necessary words omitted completely.  Didn't anyone ever proof this?  Maybe I'm the only one who finds these blatant errors annoying - and I can overlook one or two - but they occurred often enough that they really interfered with the flow of the reading.
3325047
I appreciate people with larger than normal vocabularies, but unfortunately the author of this book abused his large vocabulary nearly every opportunity, showing off his skills at obfuscation instead of trying to convey a point clearly.  The book could have been fully a third shorter with no loss of content.

One also gets the feeling from this book that Mr Strydom has a personal vendetta against Ulrich Beck.  Mr Strydom missed not a single opportunity to condemn Beck as being naive while passing this judgement off as 'analysis.'  His attitude is really quite childish at times.

Mr Strydom also tosses out grandiose opinions about the origins of risk while citing nothing to back up his claims.  At the same time, he frequently cites other sociologists, strictly by last name, fully expecting the read to be as expert in the subject as he is, and his method of citation makes it impossible to actually find the work he cites.  Baffling, not to mention frustrating.

I despised this book.  It was the assigned text in a class I recently took, and I had little choice but to read it if I wanted a decent grade.  My sympathies if you have to read it too.
2981248
This is one of the worst books I have ever read.  It is nothing more than nonsensical ramblings, haphazardly strung together.  It reads like overheard gossip between neighbors.  The author's grasp of the English language is minimal & uneducated, at best.  This manuscript (and I use the term loosely) was in desperate need of a proofreader, editor, or even a ghostwriter before publication.  The grammatical errors are frustrating and abundant;  I do not believe there is a single paragraph without one of some sort.  Missing or inappropriately used punctuation, run-on sentences, fragments, misspelled words, and inaccurate use of verb tense are all present.  Few sources are cited or quotes attributed, making it difficult to determine where the author obtained her "facts".  If her research is as incompetent as her writing skills, everything in this book is suspect.  Furthermore, there is no discernible outline, represented by the multiple times the author takes off on tangents, repeating the same version of events numerous times.  Understand, these are not differing or contradictory testimonies.  She tells the EXACT same scenarios three and four times, without cause.  I also found the description of an unwitnessed, fatal attack from the perspective of the victim to be insensitive and inappropriate.  Portions of this book, including that one, are better described as fiction.  Another example:  she specifically states that Bowen died without ever accepting blame or responsibility for Betty's death, yet included a full interview she supposedly conducted with him in prison, where he confesses to her.  If I could give this zero stars, I honestly would.  My $20 could have been spent in far more useful ways than on a poorly written, questionable story.
191369
I don't normally criticize, especially as the author clearly went far in some places to actually contact some of the event creators, but holy crap the errors. How a published book gets all the way through editing, especially in what appears to be a second edition, with so many typos, grammatical and spelling errors I have no idea. I haven't even finished the book and were I an English teacher I'd give a C- just on the errors alone. Then there's the factual errors such as incorrect, sometimes internally inconsistent house locations and names of characters. Then there's glaring omissions of major parts of certain years. Some parts Wikipedia has more information on. I knew in advance I would likely already know 99% of what the book could possibly tell me, but I purchased it for one promise: It claimed to give walkthroughs of every house and scarezine in HHN history. I already know, from memory, the names and locations of every house, but in many cases do not have a clear understanding of the details inside many earlier houses. What did I get? "This house had a room with a vampire doing a thing." Paraphrasing of course, but that's about the level of detail it gave for many of the houses. I'm tempted to take a red pen and edit this sucker myself and send it back to the author, or at least the editor, who was apparently asleep, if he bothered to read the book at all.
344756
How many times is it possible to misspell discreet/discreetly? This is too sloppily edited or translated for intelligent readers.  No hyphens (longhaired, for example), spelling errors, etc. And the premise is worse than "Murder, She Wrote." A woman with a tenuous hold on sanity couldn't possibly get involved again and again.
2780210
Inside of 25 pages, I found so many glaring editorial errors that reading was difficult. Maybe the Publisher might want to hire Editors who have more than just Grammar School English Composition training. But, then, it would matter, because this author hasn't a clue as to how to write a multi-character book in distinct "voices." Nor, does the author have a clue as to how to write coherent sentences and form those into crafted paragraphs. This book, overall and in general, sucks.
3924782
I can't remember ever reading a book with so many typos, misspellings...and even remnants of some of the author's draft notes. It's also filled with redundancies and references to material that the author assumes you already know about the monster, Ted Bundy and his crimes.
I'm from Seattle and am friends with a sister of one of his victims and another woman who worked with him in politics in Olympia. Because that made his crimes a little too close to home, I put off reading this book for many years. I must say that especially for a book that has been through multiple editions, the level of the writer's--and publisher's--craftsmanship is appalling.
3940143
This is without a doubt the most poorly written book I've encountered in quite some time.  At first I was merely annoyed by the author's relentless butchery of the English language, then became so engrossed in its sheer awfulness that I was laughing out loud.  As for content? Padding & fluff, largely derived from other sources.  All he had to say could have filled a two-page large-print pamphlet.  (And this author once taught at Purdue University?  God help us).
1076567
Very poorly written. Book includes misspellings as well as horrible use of the English language. Would not recommend unless you need an example of what not to do.
4249956
An author who sells a book has a contract with the readera basic obligation to do at least a few things like USE A SPELLCHECKER, maybe. I doubt this author made more than one draft of this rambling "book" because Auden Johnson never bothered to correct rampant misspellings.

Books like this are what could ruin the reputation of self-publishing. Don't buy it until the author fixes the horrendous problems due to neglect. And maybe puts it through more than one draft.
1293237
I was excited to purchase this as a gift for a friend who has an interest in serial killers, but unfortunately this book is full of so many misspellings that it's only fit as a gag gift. Not only are there misspellings amongst the flavor text, but even one of the killer's names was misspelled (John Wayne "Gayce"). Truly embarrassing and unfortunate.
750348
The author, editor and proof-reader really need to go back to English class---the spelling, grammar, and word usage are HORRID!
353348
This book has so many typos, misspellings, and missing punctuation that it is torturous to read. Every time the writer referred to rugs, she wrote "rags" and she consistently substituted "thrush" for trash. For example, "today is the day to vacuum your rags and take out the thrush." Her ideas were so disorganized that I couldn't understand her system; I came away with the knowledge that I should be able to keep my house as sterile as an operating room by spending only 30 minutes per day, 6 days a week (the writer will permit me to take a day off on Sunday). However, I was never able to figure out exactly how to implement the concept.  The reviewers who have given this book 5 stars must be the author's best friends.
4316970
The publisher of this author better reconsider making any more copies of this.  There are mispelled words and lack of lamguage skills throughout the entire book. After I read it I felt deeply dissatisfied in.that it was full of information I already knew and common sense.  I'm sorry to say the author is a complete iliterate quack. If u look him up u don't find much about him and its sad because he seems to think he is a supermodel that everyone knows but in fact I can now see why I never heard of him until I came across this stupid book.  Im going to look for my refund!