Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

The niche memoir of the professional is a burgeoning market, as the books by Adam Kay, Sue Black and Richard Shepherd demonstrate. There aren’t many examples from British forensic psychologist and those that exist hardly constitute much of a pedigree. Books from the self-proclaimed ‘Jigsaw Man,’ Paul Britton have been all we’ve had to go on, and his legacy was heavily tarnished through his involvement in the ‘honey trap’ of Colin Stagg. Britton, as earnest as he tried to be, wrote what essentially amounted to adverts for his own particular brand of insight.

Mindful of this or not, David Wilson’s offering sits decidedly apart from Britton’s works. Avoiding self-aggrandisement and preening, Wilson is clearly mindful of protecting his professional reputation whilst pleasing readers keen to know what makes the worst of the worst tick. He evidently doesn’t lack self possession (and it’s hard to see how he could have done the job without it) but there’s something to be said for his easy tone, reining in the temptation to grandstand. Self deprication is often the order of the day here.

The voice of experience can sound leaden. Wilson, aware that the premise of the book isn’t a scholarly or academic analysis, avoids a heavy handed approach (and an overly superficial one whilst he’s at it.) The notorious- Nielsen, Branson- are there; Wilson knows we’re here for the big names but we’re spared sensationalist name-dropping. ‘My Life with Murderers’ is a record of a life’s work through the prism of sober reflection.

Fantastic read full of good cases and in depth case reviews. A must read for any true crime fans. Very well written, as you would expect.

Fantastic book. Grippingly interesting. Would love to read another with a different theme, My Life With .....

Interesting details regarding murderers and their motivation. Plus comments on the criminal justice system and prisons. Fascinating reading for anyone interested in criminology.

Like many, I have always been interested in crime and the psychological component to it. What is it within certain individuals that make them commit, sometimes the most vile acts, against others in society?

David Wilson begins his book by explaining his belief that the role of childhood experiences has a lasting effect on each of us and how these affect our sense of self and therefore how this may lead us on to commit criminal offences. Whilst I agree with him and his cases are compelling, the one question he doesn’t answer here is why those who may have been exposed to equally significant trauma in childhood do not perpetuate this cycle of criminal behaviour. Is this the only key to unlocking the why of crime? He does discuss nature versus nurture to some extent in relation to psychopathy and the relationship with Noel added depth to the book.

With the experience of the person committing the acts described here a central theme, the next logical step was to discuss the benefits of psychotherapeutic interventions as a key element of rehabilitation of offenders versus more traditional methods employed by the prison service. David Wilson explains the history of these interventions and demonstrates how effective they can be. He is also aware of how this can go horribly wrong and is honest in his account when he has seen this happen.

We then move onto profiling and a comparison study between American and British methodology. Again some interesting case studies are presented and is perhaps the guise in which we most recognise David Wilson.

I did enjoy this book but it was not what I was expecting. I imagined this was going to be more along the lines of case studies of work that David Wilson has been involved in. There definitely were elements of this but there was also more generalised information regarding spree killings and hitmen. The last two chapters were the most interesting and touched on real life cases that David Wilson had been involved with.

Really informative and thought h provoking book by David Wilson the well known criminology expert. Information about murderers and violent offenders he has worked with including Denis Nielsen and Charles Bronson and also about work her carries out regarding penal reform and the rehabilitation of offenders. Great read. Already recommended to my psychology student daughter.

Thanks to Little, Brown Book Group UK, David Wilson and Netgalley for the ARC of this book in return for an honest review.

I have watched many television programmes with David Wilson using his expertise looking into the criminal mind.
It is a very interesting read. A must for anyone who have an interest in crime genre
Thank you to both NetGalley and Littlebrownbookgroupuk for my eARC in exchange for my honest unbiased review

David Wilson has become something of a celebrity in the UK. Those of us who enjoy watching his programmes on cold cases are fascinated by his expertise. By his careful fitting together of all the pieces of evidence available to expose those who are guilty of heinous crimes. In this memoir, he explains how he came into this kind of work. His years as a prison governor taught him that some murderers can be rehabilitated given the right therapy. The advent of ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’ following the James Bulger case in the 90s resulted in him leaving the prison service to direct his energies elsewhere. He discusses different types of murderer, including spree murderers, hitmen, and of course serial murderers, looking for similarities in their personalities and their backgrounds to try to make sense of their behaviour. It’s a fascinating journey that has left me with a much better understanding of the ‘causes of crime’. At the end, he provides an invaluable guide to further reading which covers everything from the history of the prison service to psychotherapy. This is an excellent book, well deserving of 5 stars.

This is an entertaining mix of memoir, social history and juicy tidbits about Wilson meeting criminals and getting them to open up over a cuppa..
Wilson is an academic and has worked in several prisons including Wormwood Scrubs and open prison Grendon.
On this book he covers themes including offender profiling, what makes hitmen tick and what makes a psychopath.
He intersperses stories of notorious cases - from Denis Nilsen to the murder of James Bulger - to illustrate his themes which include the social nature of crime, and how the murderer is a product of society.
It’s fascinating stuff: my only criticism would be that it’s not the most linear narrative. Sometimes I felt like I was taking a meandering trip through Wilson’s thought processes!
But - as he says himself - the screw turned academic is something of a rare beast, and makes this a book worth reading.

My Life with Murderers is a reflection by renound professor of criminology David Wilson on his time as governor and assistant governor at a number of British prisons and the numerous encounters with murders he has had along the way. However, it’s also more than that, as it follows Wilson’s musings on what it is to be a murderer and the various types of murderers there are, from spree and hitmen to serial and beyond.

It’s clear that Wilson knows his stuff. Without having read any of his previous novels, it’s clear that he has years of experience dealing with various psychopaths and murderers and knows their personalities inside and out. He takes a more scientific approach compared to his American contemporaries too, relying more heavily of the psychology of victims and evidence based practice compared to ‘one off interviews’ and showman ship. It’s a refreshing and more reliable approach to others I’ve read (ie John Douglas, who gets a sound dressing down here).

I liked the mix of murder types described here, and felt the book did a good overall job at addressing various types of murderers and how they came to commit them, with a mixture of individual and social circumstances. In particular, I liked Wilson’s account of a documentary he made interviewing Bert Spencer, the man accused of murdering Carl Bridgewater. During the course of making the documentary, Wilson came to the conclusion that Spencer was a classic psychopath and goes into great depth to explain why he thinks this, and why and how he thinks Bert came to murder Carl. I’m now desperate to watch the documentary to see the final confrontation between the two.

I also thoroughly enjoyed the little titbits into prison life with Charles Manson (I laughed out loud at the, in all honestly, bizarre scenario of Manson threatening to stab the prison guards with his moustache while stark naked and covered in shoe polish) and a ‘Furries’ convention that Wilson inadvertently ended up getting in the mix with. I would have enjoyed some more of these personal insights, as they added some much needed light relief to a heavy topic.

This was a great addition to the true crime genre, and takes a true academic approach to the general audience. A refreshingly British read, and I’ll certainly look to this author for further reading.

Turn on your TV and watch a programme about true crime, murderers or the psychology of offending, and the odds are that David Wilson will be involved. Professor of Criminology at Birmingham City University, former prison governor, and before that an academic in a different field - having gained a PhD in history - Wilson has had a long and varied career that has involved coming into contact with some of the UK's most notorious offenders.

But more recently, he has become something of a ubiquitous figure in the media - true crime's version of Lucy Worsley, perhaps, popping up in various locations and scenarios to tell us his thoughts. Sometimes, you forget about his academic credentials, and see him more as a TV presenter or media figure, such is his worth to production companies.

This creates, though, a dilemma. What is Wilson most proud of: his criminological work, or his media work? How does he see himself? This dilemma becomes apparent in his new book, My Life With Murderers, which is published next month.

Subtitled 'Behind Bars with the World's Most Violent Men', it is a strange beast that is not sure of what genre it belongs to. Part memoir, part discussion of prison and rehabilitation, of psychopathy and mental health, Wilson's self-belief and pride in his media work and other public-facing roles are clear throughout.

A bit of judicious editing would have been helpful here, to reign in Wilson's excesses and keep him ploughing a tight narrative. Instead, he jumps around from topic to topic, interspersing regular anecdotes that serve to depict him as a multi-talented individual: an academic heavyweight, a source of advice to others, a sportsman who is happy to play badminton or rugby with offenders - or even go for a pint or two with them.

He's proud of having gone to an ex-con's wedding with his wife, even though his account of it lays bare an awkwardness about class and how a middle-class academic perceives a lower-class event (it featured skulls! But it was still a good day out!). He's equally proud of being sought out for media work, or receiving rapturous applause at student events. He clearly sees himself as a persuasive character, a confident performer, someone people look up to. He wants the media attention, just as he argues one of the murderers he has interviewed (Bert Spencer, a suspect in the Carl Bridgewater case) wants it.

When he is asked to interview the suspect in order to draw conclusions for a book foreword he has been asked to write, his response is: "I agreed but on one condition - I wanted to film the interviews in order to generate as much publicity for this cold case as I could." However, one is left with the distinct impression that he's not trying to get publicity to help solve a case as much as he wants the publicity for himself.

And the book's premise is not quite right. It's not about the 'world's most violent men' - they are predominantly British men. In addition, not all of it is about Wilson meeting murderers: there are his thoughts on murderers he's never met; a retracing of the steps of murderers such as Thomas Hamilton, the man behind the Dunblane massacre of 1996, or taxi driver Derrick Bird, responsible for 12 murders in Cumbria in 2010.

He heads north to be something of a voyeur in these communities, wanting to know what the locals think (in Dunblane, they are reluctant to indulge him; and you get the sense that in Cumbria, he is only told the minimum. Do they not realise that this is Professor David Wilson they are talking to?!).

Wilson does acknowledge the fact that he would be unable to do some of his work without the handy group of postgrad students he has at BCU, who help him by 'painstakingly going through the various documents, newspaper accounts, court and police reports' in the Carl Bridgewater case, but largely, this is about him - an autobiography of sorts, and an indulgence.

However, he clearly sees it as more of an academic tome than it is - he ends by recommending various reading into the subject, although I'm surprised by his assertion that 'there has been surprisingly little rigorous academic attention paid to murder' and his summing up historical views about murder into a single paragraph that omits much of the academic work I've read about the history of crime.

Perhaps this is due to his acknowledged sidelining of gender and crime. He has largely dealt with male murderers, and so he states that this is what he has written about. That's fair enough, and he does mention the lower percentage of female murderers compared to men. However, his mention of female psychopathy is interesting, and I would have liked to read more about this - perhaps this is a book that is waiting to be written by someone else.

Studies into murderesses, though, could have been mentioned in his bibliography section, with a recognition that this is something of interest to those reading about murder; although he mentions Shani D'Cruze, this isn't in relation specifically to works into female killers, and I was particularly looking for works such as Lizzie Seal's Women, Murder and Femininity to be included.

There are some interesting stories here, but as I say, they needed pulling into a bit more shape to my mind - although it's undoubtedly an interesting book to dip in and out of, and there are some complex and fascinating characters presented to the reader in it.

However, in short, if you're interested in what makes a murderer tick, there are probably books that will tell you more about it than this one. But if you're interested in what makes Professor David Wilson tick, this partial memoir will probably tell you more than even he thought it would.

This is a truly excellent book. Wilson's research and insight into both prison-based therapy and murderers and their psychology is outstanding. It deals with complex issues while still being pacey and engaging. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in criminal law (my former career), criminology, or psychology.