The fundamental purpose of this book is to make the point that serial killers existed in the ancient world. This is predicated on an assumption of scepticism, that most people would think ‘that serial murder was a problem arising from the ills of modern society’ (p. 1). To dispel this belief, F. marshals a wide range of ancient characters and events, spanning all possible shades of the historical and the mythological, which display, she argues, features of the serial killer template.

F. has already established herself as a scholar who combines profound investigation of ancient storytelling cultures and social attitudes with a commitment to illuminating the connections between antiquity and the modern world. These qualities are exemplified in her Haunted Greece and Rome (1999), in which parallels between ancient and current folklore are frequently identified, and in which the style of writing is made accessible to the non-specialist. The present book takes the principle of accessibility even further. In the introduction F. states that ‘this book is not intended specifically for classical scholars or other hardcore academics … Rather, this discussion is intended for anyone in the general public interested in the history of serial killing as a cultural phenomenon’ (pp. 6–7). My review will keep this statement of intended primary readership firmly in mind, but will also assess the book from the perspective of a classical scholar.

First, however, I offer a brief summary. Chapter 1 contains some important preliminaries: a basic definition of the serial killer and a description of the types of ancient character – real or legendary – that might be classified in such a way. Chapter 2 continues the process of definition, with an elaboration on the diagnostic aspects of the serial killer type. Chapter 3 outlines patterns in the apparent motives for serial murder. Chapters 4 and 5 treat the legal structures relevant to murder in ancient Greece and Rome respectively. Chapter 6 investigates a particular method of serial killing – poisoning – before Chapters 7 and 8 turn to two heroes, Heracles and Theseus respectively, whose antagonists included serial killers. Chapter 9 looks at serial killers associated with athletic contests, with the suggestion that formalised sports provided a channel for aggressive impulses whose extreme expression serial killing might be. In Chapter 10 it is proposed that local legends may have drawn on serial killings, not necessarily specific instances, but at least ‘cultural knowledge or recognition of the phenomenon’ (p. 152). Chapters 11 and 12 return to consider types of killing: murders of spouses, then murders of children (especially by witches). Chapter 13, in conclusion, returns to the basic assertion that serial killing did not begin with Jack the Ripper and is not a symptom of ‘decadent’ Western society, but occurs globally.

For the most part, the book seems to serve non-specialist readers well. It is engagingly written and presented, with inset text panels providing side-notes adjacent to the main narrative, and plentiful illustrations, some of them supplying cheerful trivia, such as the stick insects named after Theseus’ opponent Periphetes (p. 105). Because the book covers some of the major ancient myth-cycles (including the Labours of Heracles and Theseus, Odysseus’ voyage and return), it would serve as a good introduction to Greek mythology for a reader largely or wholly unacquainted with the material. To this end, it might have been helpful to provide a chronological table of the key ancient sources, so that general readers could keep track of their basic dates and types. On the whole I can imagine non-specialists enjoying the book and finding in it a valuable confirmation of the continued power of antiquity to shed light on our own times, if only through basic similarity.

Those are certainly the parameters within which the book operates. A different kind of book on the same subject could make a really major contribution to classical scholarship by investigating, deeply and systematically, ancient attitudes to multiple murders and their perpetrators. The serial killer, a term loaded with specifically modern associations and resonances, could be an excellent lens for examining how Greeks and Romans perceived killing and the limits of its acceptability. There are precedents for such a study, for example P. Meineck and D. Konstan (edd.), Combat Trauma and the Ancient Greeks (2014): in that volume the various contributions question deeply the applicability of the concept of PTSD in the ancient world through studies of specific texts, genres and social settings, and readers – who need not be Classicists – are left with profound new insights into both the ancient and the modern contexts. F.'s book achieves some of the same effect, for example by establishing the legal backdrop in Chapters 4 and 5, but to a much more superficial degree, working chiefly through a welter of examples, ancient and modern, drawn together on the grounds of basic similarity. This similarity rests on two essential tenets: serial killers have always existed and were regarded in antiquity in ways largely comparable with how they are regarded today. It is identified chiefly through a constant flipping back and forth, anecdotally, between ancient and modern examples. None of the examples is dwelt on for long; the narrative is fast-paced and breezy.

In effect, what has been produced feels like the raw material for a really important study. Monster Theory provides a useful analogy: it identifies a series of patterns in the conception and significance of monsters across cultures, ancient and modern; its chief value, however, is to facilitate detailed investigation of how the characteristics of the monster are adapted to take on meaning within a particular society. F.'s book essentially points out a series of similarities between ancient and modern killers; some of the similarities feel forced, though most are convincing in their basic existence. Were its purpose deeper and more ambitious, it might have gone on to examine in detail the variations, not only between ancient and modern instances, but also between the manifestations of the theme in the varied ancient contexts that the sources represent. As it is, ancient authors with wildly different literary characters, purposes and backgrounds are combined with only the most cursory attention paid to their specific intricacies. It is sometimes noted, for example when discussing Messalina on p. 161, that ancient accounts of historical figures cannot be relied on as factually accurate, but that instead they reflect attitudes of the time; true, but throughout the book those attitudes are treated largely as a homogeneous set. The resulting vagueness is exacerbated by rather inexact language; for example, on p. 115 we read that ‘Sciron's forcing his victims to bend over and wash his feet is at best creepy and at worst sexual’. Rather than imputing possible qualities in this manner, it would have been better to provide some detailed case studies of how killings are depicted in particular texts, thereby considering the shades of tone authors gave them. As soon as we consider stories separate from their textual conduits, a great proportion of their significance is lost to us.

At this point I return to the book's main intended audience, non-specialist readers. The shortcomings outlined above relate to a standard that F. was not trying to meet. The book might well provide material for a further work on the subject, less superficial, more rigorous, of which F. would be the ideal author. Meanwhile, non-specialists will surely find the present book interesting and engaging. It is to be hoped that the publisher's distribution and marketing strategies will ensure that it reaches the consumers for which it was principally written and achieves its potential for the wider dissemination of ancient history.