Ben Kissel - The Last Book on the Left: Stories of Murder and Mayhem from History’s Most Notorious Serial Killers

Copyright 2020 by MEGUSTALATIONS ENTERTAINMENT, LLC

All rights reserved.

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Kissel, Ben, author. | Parks, Marcus, author. | Zebrowski, Henry, author. | Neely, Tom, 1975Illustrator.

Title: The last book on the left : stories of murder and mayhem from historys most notorious serial killers / Ben Kissel, Marcus Parks and Henry Zebrowski; illustrations by Tom Neely.

Description: Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2020. | Second statement of responsibility from title page verso.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019045770 (print) | LCCN 2019045771 (ebook) | ISBN 9781328566317 (hardback) | ISBN 9780358172284 (e-audio) | ISBN 9780358306740 (CD) | ISBN 9781328566225 (ebook) | ISBN 9780358409809 (special edition)

Subjects: LCSH: Serial murderersHistory. | Serial murderersHumor.

Classification: LCC HV6515 .K57 2020 (print) | LCC HV6515 (ebook) | DDC 364.152/32092273dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019045770

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019045771

Cover illustrations and design by Tom Neely

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Clapping hands emoji on Sudowoodo/Shutterstock.com

To the listeners, without whom we would not exist.

This is

THE LAST BOOK ON THE LEFT:

Stories of Murder and Mayhem from Historys Most Notorious Serial Killers,

a work thirty-seven years in the making.

If you listen to the Last Podcast on the Left, you are a person of taste and power. Thank you for your service. If you havent heard of our podcast and just want to read about serial killers, youve come to the right place! If you havent heard of us and you dont want to read about serial killers, put the book down, slowly back away, and go purchase a nice Dave Barry book or one of those tiny books near the cash register with a title like 100 Ways to Make Your Pet Your Child.

The Last Podcast on the Left is a true crime / paranormal / all things dark and mysterious comedy podcast that was started in 2011 by three cretins in the basement of a Mexican restaurant, right next to the crates of beans. Now we are one of the most popular podcasts on the internet thanks to luck and the boredom of millions of people.

Every week we dive deep into the minds and histories of some of the most notorious serial killers the world has ever seen. Led by intrepid producer and researcher Marcus Parks, cohosts Henry Zebrowski and Ben Kissel leave no stone unturned as they examine minute details of these murderers lives and make fun of their dimple penises and infatuation with milk. Years of researching serial killers has revealed that most of these criminals are not the monsters of nightmares they are so often portrayed to be by true crime entertainment but are more often huge dorks who couldnt get anything right in their lives so they turned to murder and mayhem. And were here to pick this all apart.

Now for the Last Podcast on the Left roll call!

Hi, Im Henry Zebrowski, and I am a professional comedian. I hail from Queens, New York and am thirty-five years young, and, at the present, Im a loose-bodied 180-pound man with a mind of garbage but a heart of gold. On LPOTL I do a lot of character voices and try my best to keep up with the research prowess of Marcus Parks. I believe in the healing power of our dark lord Satan.

Im Ben Kissel! Im a big guy from the Midwest who has always been fascinated by horror films and true crime stories. As a matter of fact, I grew up only twenty minutes from Ed Geins grave in Plainfield, Wisconsin. My job on the podcast is to contribute levity to some of the most heinous crimes ever committed and learn right along with the audience.

He learns!

You will not see Marcuss head very often. He lurks in the shadow of his computer.

Now, what goes into the book form of a podcast? Thats a good question! Each chapter is a deep dive into a serial killer, with Marcuss analysis driving the narrative and jokes interjected by Henry and Ben. We are tackling nine of the most notorious serial killers in historymost you would identify easily on the Tumblr page of a serial killer groupieand weve addressed most of them on the show in one fashion or another, but our goal here is to look at these creatures again, with fresh eyes. You might notice Marcuss dried tears throughout as a result of these efforts. Let us be very clear: Marcus wrote most of this. Henry and Ben drank and stared at him while he was hunched over a keyboard like Jack Torrance. All we had to do was write the introduction! Which turned out to be very difficult. Its hard to write a book!

Join us as we cackle into the darkness. The only way to defeat these monsters is to laugh at them. Or put them in jail, obviously.

HAIL SATAN

HAIL GEIN

HAIL YOURSELVES

This is The Last Book on the Left.

When it comes to serial killing, one hesitates to use qualifiers like best or greatest because, for the most part, using descriptors of that sort is tasteless and disrespectful to the victims. But if one were to objectively quantify pure ability, evasion skills, and the capacity to inspire fear in the hearts of the public, Ted Bundy would come out on top. This man was so terrifying, so reprehensible, so iconic that he seemed mythical. However, when you pull back the curtain, Bundy, like all the degenerates youre going to get to know over the course of this book, was just a man.

Unfortunately, given that very few people ever actually witness a serial killer at work and live to tell the tale, we generally have to trust the most untrustworthy person in the room to create the narrative: the actual killer. The mythology that surrounds Ted Bundy is one that he helped to create, from his supposed habit of gussying up the decapitated heads of his victims with makeup to the sexual acts he allegedly performed on said heads. While there is no doubt about the heinousness of his crimes, there remains skepticism as to the veracity of some of his claims.

As a Knicks fan, I witness a serial killing every game.