The Killing Kind

May 12, 2014
In this workmanlike true crime book, Phelps (I'll Be Watching You) focuses on unrepentant killer Danny Hembree, who taunts the families of his victims from his prison cell. The discovery of 17-year-old Heather Catterton's semi-naked body, discarded by her killer, foreshadows what is to come. In short order, 30-year-old Randi Saldana's half-burned corpse signals to York County (S.C.) Sheriff's Office investigators that they are looking for a serial killer. For all their dissimilarities, the lives of the two victims intersected in a world of drugs and exploitation, a world where Hembree preyed on vulnerable women. The narcissistic killer seizes the chance to take center stage with lurid confessions of a decades-long career of violent robbery, assault, rape, and murder, convinced that cunning and lies will save him from death row in the trial that follows. Fans of the author's Discovery TV series, Dark Minds, will be rewarded.