Michael Powell gives us a condensed history of 101 of some of the most vile people ever to have lived. Each entry is broken into a mini-biography containing Name; Title (aka), Birth, Death, Influences, What they did wrong, Body Count, and Quotes regarding them and most of them have accompanying photos. It's a listing of murderers and rapists that are truly repulsive. Included are 39 political/military personalities (Idi Amin, Osama, Ayatollah, Saddam, Attila the Hun, Queen 'Bloody' Mary, Vlad the Impaler, etc), 6 Nazi (Hitler, Mengele, Ilse Koch, etc), and then others like Timothy McVeigh, Iceman Kuklinski, Dahmer, Manson, Ramirez, Jim Jones, Bundy. As well as some you probably don't know about like Gertrude Baniszewski, Bobby Joe Long, Leonard Lake & Charles Ng, and Pedro Alonso Lopez. The book is really tremendously informative but there are inaccuracies that I have found regarding the likes of Albert Fish, Ed Gein, Jack the Ripper (the suspect list is poorly done).

I would have like to have seen less political figures and there are exclusions that could have been put on the list instead of some of them. Missing are Gary 'Green River Killer' Ridgeway, Ben 'BTK' Rehder, Aileen Wournos, David 'Son of Sam' Berkowits, Albert 'Boston Strangler' DeSalvo. Lesser knowns are Randall "The I-5 Killer" Woodfield, Jerry Brudos, Harvey Louis Carignan "The Want-Ad Killer", and Ivan Milat "the Outback Killer" (of Wolf Creek fame). Also if he includes Jack the Ripper, then he should include Zodiac. And then theres George Chapman who not only is a top Jack the Ripper suspect but also a serial poisoner to boot.

Overall, the book gives brief histories on the people that may inspire you to look further into some cases (why isn't there a movie on Robert 'Swede' Hanson?) and is pretty interesting for a quick insight to some depraved people throughout history. Recommended for true crime afficiandos and easy references to serial killers for a reasearch paper. Could easily have a sequal of '101 More People You Won't Meet in Heaven' to include those forgotten ones and less focus on the politic/military people. It's worth the money and you'll read it quickly. There's also Harold Schechter's "Encyclopedia of Serial Killers" for an even bigger list.