James Holmes killed or wounded seventy people in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. Only one man was allowed to record extensive interviews with the shooter. This is what he found. On July 20, 2012 in Aurora, Colorado, a man in dark body armor and a gas mask entered a midnight premiere of The Dark Knight Rises with a tactical shotgun, a high-capacity assault rifle, and a sidearm. He threw a … a sidearm. He threw a canister of tear gas into the crowd and began firing. Soon twelve were dead and fifty-eight were wounded; young children and pregnant women were among them. The man was found calmly waiting at his car. He was detained without resistance.
Unlike the Columbine, Newtown, San Bernadino, and Las Vegas shootings, James Holmes is unique among mass shooters in his willingness to be taken into custody alive. In the court case that followed, only Dr. William H. Reid, a distinguished forensic psychiatrist, would be allowed to record interviews with the defendant. Reid would read Holmes’ diary, investigate his phone calls and text messages, interview his family and acquaintances, speak to his victims, and review tens of thousands of pages of evidence and court testimony in an attempt to understand how a happy, seemingly normal child could become a killer.
A Dark Night in Aurora uses the twenty-three hours of unredacted interview transcripts never seen by the public and Reid’s research to bring the reader inside the mind of a mass murderer. The result is chilling, gripping study of abnormal psychology and how a lovely boy named Jimmy became a killer.
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An easy to read look into the mind of a sick bastard.
Five stars? Sure! After all, I wrote it. But almost all the reader reviews on Amazon are five stars as well. Give it a read! Skyhorse (my publisher) will appreciate it and my wife will be able to afford a new pair of (sensible) shoes.
Mass murderers are rarely taken alive. Most kill themselves; some are killed by police. James Holmes was one of the notable exceptions—on July 20, 2012, he was arrested after killing twelve people and wounding fifty-eight at the Century 16 theater in Aurora, Colorado. When we heard about it, one question was universal almost immediately: why?
James Holmes doesn’t know.
In A Dark Night in Aurora, forensic psychiatrist Dr. William Reid presents the James Holmes story from his birth to his incarceration and trial. Each chapter in the book tells of several events in Holmes’ life, calling him “James” in a folksy way. However, Dr. Reid is well aware that this kind of background information can create in us the dangerous tendency to develop sympathy for even the worst perpetrator. Therefore he uses a surprising and unusual literary technique of including a few paragraphs at the ends of the first five chapters which detail the murders of specific victims. This is a very effective reminder that we’re reading about a mass murderer and not some poor misunderstood kid who kicked the family dog.
Later in the book are graphic details of the mass shooting, right down to the level of how escape was difficult because the aisles were slippery with blood. You can practically hear the gunfire. Particularly chilling is the description of how Holmes had rigged up his apartment to explode the next time somebody came in through the door. Obviously he didn’t intend to return, but he did expect someone would show up there at some point. Fortunately police looked through the window first and saw the booby trap, avoiding many additional deaths.
The second half of the book takes us through Holmes’ psychological examinations and legal proceedings. Through all this, the “why” is still elusive. He wanted to kill lots of people, but who was he really trying to kill? He doesn’t know. Was he suicidal? He isn’t sure. Trying to pull answers out of him leads to a world of frustration.
Holmes has never denied the murders, although his attempt to plead insanity was belied by his obvious careful planning of the massacre and his statements afterward. Of course he must know why he did it; but the reasons remain buried deep in his comatose emotions, and we may never know them. If you’re looking for a “why,” you have to draw your own conclusions. This book can greatly help you to form them with as much accuracy as possible.
I have read a lot of true crime books. This one was well written and I had a hard time putting it down until it was completed. Very sad and senseless. I read this book to get a sense of why and how someone could do something so evil. It’s hard to comprehend.
This book is very informative though tragic, but gets bogged down in a lot of speculative details of the mental illness perceived by various psychologists.
Scholarly rather than written for entertainment. If you have a law background or have worked with the mentally ill you’ll find this informative.
In depth insight into one of the most disturbing crimes of the century!
Well documented and well written
This was an interesting, in-depth look at the Aurora Theater Shooting with excellent insight into mental health issues.
Behind the psychiatric scenes.
Sad how mental health failure led to the lose of innocent lives.
I assume most Americans know what happened with this story. So tragic and sad.
A very disturbing book! It was hard to understand how such an extremely intelligent young man from such a good family could plan and carry out a murderous rampage for no apparent reason. In hindsight I believe he was mentally ill in some respect. But, not enough to be found incompetent to stand trial or innocent because of insanity. Our nation must continue to evaluate our health system in hopes of meeting the needs of people with varying degrees of mental illness. Unfortunately, I believe we will continue to see violence like this repeated in the form of other mass killings. Such an alarming trend in our society!
It must be terrible to be a victim of an incident like this and my heart goes out to all the victims and their families who will forever be haunted. But I also felt for the family of James Holmes. If only his behavior could have alerted the authorities beforehand.
Boring, mostly shrink interviews and assessments, hard to keep going. If you are a shrink, probably would enjoy this book. As a citizen who was living in Denver when this happened, learned more off the news than this book.
A bit dry
I read this book I will admit because we lived in the same town as James Holmes grew up in and it was so shocking then he went into that theater and just started shooting. Its a heartbreaking story but only made my beliefs even stronger that we need to direct more help to the mental health field. Currently in the United States, or at least California for sure, its so difficult for family members to get help for members of their own family suffering from mental problems that they sometimes just give up. I truly believe that is part of the reason we have so many homeless on the streets, and such hideous shootings happening at work places and at schools. We have got to make sure families can get proper help for mental health problems now.
Really interesting and insightful