Cover Image: THE KILLING GAME

THE KILLING GAME

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Member Reviews

I had seen this on the Reelz channel and was excited to read this book. I neither liked or disliked this book. Some parts of the book were very good, others were just ok. Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the arc of this book in return for my honest review. Receiving the book in this manner had no bearing on this review.

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Rodney Alcala aka the dating game killer was finally tried in 2010 for the murders of 5 young women. While searching his belongings, the police found hundreds of nude pictures of women and young boys. They theorize that there must be more deaths and then Alcala admits to only 2 more. I watched the show that dating game that he was on and was taken aback by his looks and charm yet I knew what he had done. When I requested this book, I was hoping it would give the reader some background on Alcala and I was not disappointed.The writer included all pertinent information without going overboard on things not so much of interest. I learned things that I was not aware of and Feel that the author has done an amazing job researching everything for his book. I highly recommend this one to anyone who enjoys true crime,

Thank you to netgalley as well as the author/publisher for allowing me to read this book in exchange for my honest review.

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I'm an avid true crime reader, but this was difficult to get through. I truly appreciate what the author was trying to do by highlighting each victim of Rodney Alcala, but the structure ended up making it feel like I was reading a super long Wikipedia entry. There was no narrative, and no life to the story. We barely got to know anything about any of the victims either. We got basic biographical details and then BOOM, right into the murder with no kind of segue.

The author clearly did his research, but ultimately, this was not what I was looking for.

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Pretty good rundown on Alcala's weird life of crime. Strange ranger, this perp, because as a kid he was the Model Child. Incredibly bright, he graduated First in his Class. I believe he has a college degree too? But doing something with his life just wasn't getting it for him. He had to hurt people and hurt people he certainly did.
Excellently written but, as always, you sure can't figure out murderers' brains like his.
Not an overly detailed dragging account of the murder trials but astonishing description of how courts in California let this guy go like four times. This does happen sometimes but WHY??
Really respected the writer's work.
Great instructional piece on why you should tell your kids to NEVER GO WITH A STRANGER, EVER, EVER.

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This is a really well researched true crime novel. This book is about the little known serial killer Rodney Alcala. The author has wrote about Alcala in great depth, starting with his childhood all the way up until 2010. The book goes in to the different crimes commited by Alcala and his subsequent trials.
If you like true crime novels then this is a very good read. Its well set out and is not full of crime "jargon". Will be looking for more books by this author.

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Starting in 1968 and continuing into the 1970s, Rodney Alcala stalked young women in California and New York, raping, strangling, and killing many. He was able to hide in plain sight, due to his charming nature and big personality. He was even a winning contestant on the popular television show "The Dating Game" during this time. After many years of trials and pain, Alcala was finally convicted of five murders in 2010. Currently, police are still asking for the public's help in identifying the girls and women in his photograph collection, hoping that they are found or their murders are brought to justice. Today, Alcala remains in California State Prison, Corcoran.

While I found this case to be an interesting read, there was something that was not connecting between the material and the author. There was not any new or additional information that people familiar with this case would not have known before. If you have seen a television special, or even read through the Wikipedia article on Rodney Alcala, you have read everything in this book. I would have liked to read more about the mind of Alcala or the voices of the victims but these were not included. I also found the writing style to be disconnected from the subject material. If you are writing about horrendous crimes, you probably should lay off of the exclamation points and the conversational tone. It was a good book if you have never heard about Alcala but for those of us that have, it was just a rehashing of old information.

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This is one of the better "true crime" books I've read! I thoroughly enjoyed it (despite the horror of Rodney Alcala).

Meticulously researched and well put together it's a must read for true crime lovers!

Thanks WildBlue Press and NetGalley for the e-galley!

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What an amazing read! I loved this book!

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Thank you netgalley for an exchange of this title for my honest opinion

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I had never heard of Rodney Alcala until I saw the blurb for this book on NetGalley. Being a fan of true crime stories, I was immediately interested in digging into the mind and background of someone who could commit such horrible and heart-breaking crimes, and in the midst of it all, appear on a TV game show looking for a date! I was also, as always when I read true crime, expecting to learn about the victims and their families, not just as casualties or names on a page, but as real people with hopes, dreams, and their own histories that caused fate to place them in the path of a disturbed individual. I still hope to read that book someday, but this wasn't it.

The Killing Game reads like a poorly constructed school report. It is as dry as a bone, and there is very little background information about Alcala himself or his victims to make them seem anything more than just statistics. I felt like I could have gotten all of this information myself just by doing a Google search. It's hard to imagine that a true crime story could be boring, and I even hesitate to write this, as it dishonors the victims, but I couldn't wait to get through the book. The final section on Alcala's last trial was perhaps the most interesting, ironically, since most of that was simply direct verbiage from the trial, and not even the author's words.

I'm always sorry to rate a NetGalley book so low, as I'm honored to be given the chance to read and review these stories. However, I can't give this one more than 1 star. Many thanks to NetGalley and WildBlue Press for the opportunity to read in exchange for my honest review.

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Rodney Alcala, born in 1943 in San Antonio, Texas, is believed to have raped and murdered around 130 people. Alcala committed his first known crime (rape of an 8 year old girl) in 1968, at the age of 25 while a student at UCLA.  Due to the unavailability of the witness (she had moved back to Mexico with her family), Alcala was given a sentance of only 1 year to life, and released on parole after 34 months.

That was just the beginning of the horrific crimes of torture, rape, and murder that Alcala would commit during his lifetime.

I am giving the book 3 stars out of 5, as I neither really liked, nor really disliked it.

While I usually enjoy a true crime story, I found that this book while being extremely detailed and obviously well researched, lacked the human element -- both in the telling of the background story of the killer himself, and also in the telling of the story of the victims.  I felt like I was reading some legal document, which was spelling out the facts of the case to a judge, rather than a novel.

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This book is a WOW! I had never heard of this serial killer before. I thought that this book was a great over view of the killings and the serial killer.
However, I wish that there was more information on the victims and of the background of the serial killer himself. I felt that this was a great start for the subject and I just wish that there was more information.
I devoured this book in one sitting! I can't believe that a serial killer was on the Dating Game show. WOW! I learned something new.

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If you are into true crime and serial killers, this real-life account of the horrors of serial killing is as macabre and terrifying as it gets. The descriptions of the cases and what the victims went thru is in itself an absolute horror; I was halfway thru the book and couldn't turn away.

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The Killing Game: The True Story Of Rodney Alcala

Having read quite a bit about Rodney Alcala, I was eager to read this book on him. I consider him to be quite an evil piece of work yet a fascinating subject to read about. I was hoping to see if there was any news of current court doings, etc. Rodney’s first known victim was only 8 years old and it happened in 1968, coincidentally I happened to be 8 years old that year too, so it chills me thoroughly. He saw her walking to school from the Chateau Marmont and talked her into getting into his car for a ride. Tali Shapiro never made it that day. But a good Samaritan was watching, thankfully and thought it looked suspicious and followed them. He saw where Alcala took Tali and went to a pay phone and called the police. By the time an officer knocked, Alcala yelled through the door that he was in the shower. The officer yelled back that he had ten seconds to open up as Alcala fled out the back. Finally, the cop kicked the door in and searched the place, horrified at what he found in the kitchen. Tali was brutalized but shocked everyone when she began breathing and survived.

The next victim was Julie Johnson, 13. On October 13, 1975, Julie was waiting for her school bus when Alcala offered her a ride to school. She eventually agreed and got in his car with him. When she realized he’d passed her school, she got upset. He took her to the cliffs at Huntington Beach and forced her to smoke weed with him. They were caught by a ranger and Alcala was arrested, both were taken in for questioning. Alcala knew he was in trouble, having just gotten out of prison for what he did to the 8-year-old, (the parole board let him go after only 34 months, mind you!) he was sent first back to jail, then prison. After this victim, he learned in prison to not let the victims survive to testify which would have catastrophic results in years to come.

After this, the bodies were dropping like crazy and the total number isn’t known for sure. When he first got out of prison he got permission to go to New York state and he lived there for a while and is known to have killed few females there and in New Hampshire. He later returned to California again and returned to his old habits there and was eventually caught. He was repeatedly tried for the killing of one girl, Robin Samsoe age 12 on June 13, 1979, that got overturned twice. By the third trial, DNA had tied him to a total of 4 other new murder cases too, and they wanted to try them all with the Robin Samsoe case. By then, Alcala had done enough of his own legal work and motions that he filed to ask that he be allowed to represent himself in the case. After being denied a couple of times, they finally approved him. It was becoming big news, as it was again a death penalty case too. His two early victims both testified, now grown and yet still traumatized by it many years later. When the guilty verdict was read in the courtroom in 2010 the crowd roared, Alcala was silent. He was given the death penalty.

Following that conviction, Huntington Beach PD released more than 100+ pictures taken by Alcala that had been found in his rental locker in Seattle, WA and posted them online asking for the public’s help in identifying them, in the hopes of ruling out any further victims of his. There was already four known of in New York. Alcala was indicted by a Manhattan Grand jury in January 2011 for the murders of Cornelia Crilley, the TWA flight attendant, and Ellen Hover, the Ciro’s heiress, in 1971 and 1977, respectively. He eventually pleaded guilty in those cases and was given an additional 25 years to life, as the death penalty hasn’t been an option in New York since 2007.

In September 2016, Alcala was charged with the murder of 28-year-old Christine Ruth Thornton, who disappeared in 1977. A relative of hers recognized her in one of the 100 pictures in 2013 posted of Alcala’s by the Huntington Beach PD and NYPD. Her body was found in Sweetwater County, Wyoming, in 1982 but was not identified until 2015 when DNA supplied by Thornton’s relatives matched tissue samples from her remains. Alcala admitted taking the photo, but not to killing the woman, who was approximately six months pregnant at the time of her death. Thornton is the first alleged murder victim linked to the Alcala photos made public in 2010. The 73-year-old Alcala was reportedly “too ill” to make the journey from California to Wyoming to stand trial on the new charges. He remains in California State Prison – Corcoran, pending further appeals of his death sentences. It is unknown how many women and girls he killed altogether. My thanks for the advance electronic copy that was provided by NetGalley, author Alan R. Warren, and the publisher for my fair review.


Author-- Al Warren has his Doctorate in Religious Studies (DD), Masters Degree (MM) in Music from University of Washington in Seattle, Bachelor of Arts (BA) Criminology from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, B.C. Canada and Recording & Sound Engineering Diploma from the Juno Award Winning Bullfrog Studios in Vancouver B.C. Canada.

He got his start on digital radio for the Z Talk Radio Network and still produces several shows for them.  Al started writing for articles in True Case Files Magazine and is still a contributor, that has led his to finishing his first book in True Crime for WildBlue Press to be released later this year. 
Now he owns Something Weird Media in Canada where he produces several talk radio shows including Dark Shadows (Conspiracy, Cover-ups and Alternative History) Lost in Space (Everything UFO's) Julie Sav Show (U.K. Paranormal Show) Land of the Giants (Cryptozoolog) and House of Mystery (True Crime, Serial Killers and Unsolved Crimes) and Coming Soon Murder House.

WildBlue Press   200 pages
Pub: Oct. 2nd, 2018


My BookZone blog:
https://wordpress.com/post/bookblog200.wordpress.com/932

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