When Satanism first began to penetrate popular culture in the sixties, through the lyrics of The Beatles and The Stones, it was intended as a harmless rebellion against conventional society. Yet, inevitably, this encouraged more radical extremes to follow, with Black and Death Metal bands becoming wide spread over the seventies. For some individuals the implications of the music were not enough. An underground cult movement began to emerge across the United Sates and Europe. A haven for the loners, rejects and social misfits; these cults endorsed the hero-worshiping of vicious murders and notorious criminals, elevating them to an iconic status, and immortalizing them in the memories of each generation. But it is where this morbid fascination makes the violent transition into murder, mutilation, necrophilia and rape that Moorhouse has chosen to investigate. Dismissed by judges as clinically insane, Moorhouse attempts to understand the disposition of the people that commit these disgusting and abhorable crimes, by returning back to their childhoods. Although this has always been a popular clique to rationalise the actions of the criminally insane, most of the case studies examined here did prove to have an abusive or tormented childhood. Rather than criticize and condemn, Moorhouse remains open-minded as he trawls through the carnage left by some of the most dangerous and unpredictable killers in history.