Unholy Messenger

The Life and Crimes of the BTK Serial Killer

By: Stephen Singular

Narrated by: Alan Sklar

Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins

Publisher's summary

To all appearances, Dennis Rader was a model citizen in the small town of Park City, Kansas, where he had lived with his family almost his entire life. He was a town compliance officer, a former Boy Scout leader, the president of his church congregation, and a seemingly ordinary father and husband. But Rader's average life belied the existence of his dark, sadistic other self: he was the BTK serial killer.

The self-named BTK (for Bind, Torture, Kill) had terrorized Wichita for 31 years, not only with his brutal, sexually motivated crimes, but also through his taunting, elusive communications with the media and law enforcement. In 1974, BTK committed his first murders, torturing and strangling four members of the Otero family, and wrote the police an audacious letter declaring his responsibility for the Oteros' deaths and labeling himself, for the first time, BTK. Thus he established a pattern, stalking and killing a series of 10 victims, then bragging and claiming ownership of his crimes, that ended in 1991 but left law enforcement confounded and the public with deeply troubling memories. Until, that is, he resurfaced in 2004 with another string of letters that would finally lead to his arrest.

Drawing from extensive interviews with Rader's pastor, congregation, detectives, and psychologists who worked the case, and from his unnervingly detailed 32-hour confession, best-selling author Stephen Singular delves into the disturbing life and crimes of BTK to explore fully, for the first time, the most dangerous and complex serial killer of our generation and the man who embodied, at once, astonishing extremes of normality and abnormality.

©2006 Stephen Singular (P)2006 Tantor Media Inc

Critic reviews

"Singular has written a solid account that will both fascinate and terrify." (Publishers Weekly)

Overwritten, tedious narration

Ugh. How could such a fascinating story be so tedious? I can understand why the reader who lived near BTK found this interesting, but unless you have that kind of connection, you are likely to find this excruciatingly detailed and lacking dramatic intensity. The narrator's delivery was disconcertingly out of tune with the content.

Wait? Was this about BTK or Pastor Clark?!

Would you try another book from Stephen Singular and/or Alan Sklar?

Possibly. Depends on the topic I suppose.

Has Unholy Messenger turned you off from other books in this genre?

No. I am a devoted true-crime listener/reader and have listened to/read the very best, the very worst, and everything in between. I predict I will continue to do so.

Would you listen to another book narrated by Alan Sklar?

Sure. He was just doing his job by reading the material in front of him.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Anger and frustration. Too much sympathy for Rader and his family and a negligible amount for the victims and their families in this side of the story. The almost incessant talk of God and faith became laughable, and then annoying. This man savagely murdered 10 people and ripped apart the hearts and souls of the families involved. Where was God exactly?

Any additional comments?

Although I don't find Rader the most interesting of the known serial killers, this book could have been so much more than it was.

Disappointed, pretty boring and too much preachin

The book did not tell you anything about the case that is not available in Internet.

Way too much extra info

Too much about pastor Clark and not enough about Dennis Rader. Disappointing that they didn't get more into his motivation for his behavior or what is happening with him now.

It's a Christian Book!!

this book highly frustrated me. the first half just skims over crimes and events, while the second half is about Christ and saving Denis raders soul. warn the readers before they waste their money