Book reviews: Disturbed & Mine
'Disturbed' takes the reader on a journey through the mind of five of the country’s most notoriously violent criminals.
Picture: iStock
Disturbed
Violent criminals
Rating: ★★★★☆
Author: Dr Henk Swanepoel and Carla van der Spuy
Released by: LAPA Publishers
Year: 2017
Pages: 232
ISBN: 9780 7993 82945
The psyche of South Africa’s most cold-blooded criminals
A young man beats both his adoptive parents unconscious with a cricket bat. He then stabs them both more than 20 times each in the torso before slitting his father’s throat.
In another incident, a man bludgeons a nurse to death in a field with a piece of wood and then assaults her boyfriend so severely that he ends up in intensive care unit.
‘Why do people lose their minds?’ This is what the authors of Disturbed shed light on as they examine five of the country’s most notoriously violent criminals.
Written by authoritative clinical psychologist Dr Henk Swanepoel and true crime writer Carla van der Spuy, Disturbed takes the reader on a journey through the mind of the criminals they interview.
The book contains information about personality disorders, each criminal’s background, the day of the crime, the court case, Dr Swanepoel’s interviews and findings, the follow-up prison visit and face-to-face with the monster.
Is there hope for violent criminals? Read Disturbed and decide for yourself.
Mine
Teenage love
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Author: Sally Patridge
Released by: Pan Macmillan
Price: R240
Date: May 2018
Pages: 296
ISBN: 97807 98176 28
https://www.instagram.com/p/BkhoxxjgP08/?utm_source=ig_embed
Sense of tragic realism
Mine, the fifth novel by multiple award-winning local author Sally Partridge, born in Cape Town, is so much more than just about teenage love.
Avoiding the darker thriller-type theme of her previous works, this book beautifully conveys the full scope of an epic teen love story with a keen sense of tragic realism.
Fin the rapper and Kayla the pink-haired skater girl immerse the reader in a realistically well-crafted adventure of first love, growing up and the uncertainty of being a teenager
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