Extreme Killing: Understanding Serial and Mass Murder

Extreme Killing offers you a comprehensive overview of multiple homicide, including both serial and mass murder. Filled with classic and contemporary case studies, this fully updated Fourth Edition reflects a growing concern for specific types of multiple homicides—indiscriminate public massacres, terrorist attacks, hate crimes, and school shootings—as well as largely debated issues such as gun control and mental illness. 

Renowned experts and authors in the field, James Alan Fox, Jack Levin, and Emma Fridel bring their years of research and experience to create distinctions between serial and mass murders, address characteristics of both killers and their victims, and recognize the special concerns around multiple murder victims and their survivors. You will examine the latest theories of criminal behavior and apply them to mass and serial murderers from around the world, such as the mass shooting at a country music festival in Las Vegas,  the Grim Sleeper in Los Angeles, the Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando, the shooting of nine African Americans by a white supremacist in a Charleston church, and more.

James Alan Fox is the Lipman Family Professor of Criminology, Law, and Public Policy at Northeastern University. He has published 18 books, dozens of journal and magazine articles, as well as hundreds of freelance columns in newspapers around the country, primarily in the areas of multiple murder, youth crime, school and campus violence, workplace violence, and capital punishment. As a member of its Board of Contributors, his opinion column appears frequently in USAToday. Fox led the investigation of Seattle’s Capitol Hill mass shooting and was part of the task force investigating the serial murder of college students in Gainesville, Florida. He also served on President Clinton’s advisory committee on school shootings, and a Department of Education Expert Panel on Safe, Disciplined and Drug-Free Schools. In addition, he has been retained as an expert witness/consultant in several mass shooting cases, including the recent massacres at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, Texas, and the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Fox is one of the principals in maintaining the Associated Press/USA Today/Northeastern University Mass Killing Database. Finally, he has received several awards and honors for his work, including the Hugo Adam Bedau Award for excellence in capital punishment scholarship.

Jack Levin is the Brudnick Professor Emeritus in the Department of Sociology at Northeastern University, where he codirects its Center on Violence and Conflict. He has authored or coauthored more than 30 books, most recently The Violence of Hate: Understanding Harmful Forms of Bias and Bigotry and The Allure of Premeditated Murder: Why Some People Plan to Kill. Levin has also published more than 250 articles and columns in professional journals, books, magazines, and newspapers, such as The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Dallas Morning News, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Science Monitor, The Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, and USA Today.  Levin was honored by the Massachusetts Council for Advancement and Support of Education as its “Professor of the Year” and by the American Sociological Association for his contributions to the public understanding of sociology. He has also received awards from the Eastern Sociological Society, New England Sociological Association, Association of Clinical and Applied Sociology, and Society for the Study of Social Problems. Moreover, he has spoken to a wide variety of community, academic, and professional groups, including the White House Conference on Hate Crimes, the Department of Justice, OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (a membership of 59 countries), and the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

Emma E. Fridel is an assistant professor in the College of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Florida State University. She primarily studies the intersection of lethal violence and community context, focusing specifically on homicide, homicide-suicide, gun violence, serial and mass murder, intimate partner violence, and police use of lethal force. Her work has recently been published in Criminology, Social Forces, the Journal of Quantitative Criminology, Justice Quarterly, the Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Homicide Studies, Criminal Justice and Behavior, and Significance Magazine.