The Devil You Know: Stories of Human Cruelty and Compassion by Dr Gwen Adshead and Eileen Horne

BATB score: 7/10 🥹

Best as: a forensic psychiatrist sharing her notes from speaking to 11 inmates: serial killers, pedophiles, murderer, stalker, abuser; pleading for a chance to hold our judgement and hear them out; this book could have been a 10/10 if it was written by a writer VS a doctor (select only 5/11 stories, thriller narration, highlight the who-what)

Best for: for aspirational forensic psychiatrists > 11 case studies

Best to: “society needs to condemn a little less and understand a little more”

BATB linger thought: can you find it in your heart to stand in the shoes of the convicted, will you hear them out? or a sin is a sin?

Best quotes: “The reason for evil in the world is that people are not able to tell their stories.”

“There is wisdom in that popular notion that hating someone else is like taking poison and waiting for them to die.”

“Sometimes people are unlikeable because they don’t like themselves.”

“If you’re not sure where you end and others begin, it can be hard to know exactly where the boundary of reality is too.”

“Inside every violent prisoner there’s a good man dying to get out.”

“Insanity is building your own castle in the air and living in it.”

“I’ve said that the people I work with are like survivors of a disaster where they are the disaster, and much like other survivors they can struggle with the language needed to describe unspeakable memories.”