This is a capable, if sometimes breathless, reconstruction of the rampage of Robert Hansen, the ``most prolific serial rapist and murderer in Alaska's history,'' who killed more than 20 women in the 12 years before his conviction in 1984. Freelance journalist DuClos has recreated some scenes and dialogue, but has dug enough to find victims who escaped Hansen, to show how police and judges blundered in being lenient with Hansen (such as by not ensuring that he would receive psychotherapy and lithium treatment) and to describe Anchorage's tawdry tenderloin district, where Hansen stalked nude dancers. A native of Hansen's hometown, Pocahontas, Iowa, DuClos describes young Hansen as a stuttering loner with acute feelings of inadequacy--elements common to serial killers, according to FBI research cited here. Convicted of assault with a deadly weapon in 1972, Hansen was quickly furloughed, and while he held down a respectable job as a baker and won trophies for his hunting, he resumed his killing spree. He would kidnap women, take them to the wilderness (often in his plane), sometimes rape them, and stab or shoot them. After a victim who escaped Hansen identified him, police confronted him and he confessed, leading troopers on a macabre tour to identify wilderness gravesites. Hansen is now serving a life sentence in an Alaska prison.

Synopsis In one of the most bizarre crime stories ever, DuClos tells of Robert Hansen, a successful and charismatic businessman, who for 13 years was also a brutal serial killer, luring women on trips in his private plane to the Alaskan wilderness, where he forced them to literally run for their lives, while he shot at them with the rifle he used for hunting longhorn sheep. Publishers Weekly This is a capable, if sometimes breathless, reconstruction of the rampage of Robert Hansen, the ``most prolific serial rapist and murderer in Alaska's history,'' who killed more than 20 women in the 12 years before his conviction in 1984. Freelance journalist DuClos has recreated some scenes and dialogue, but has dug enough to find victims who escaped Hansen, to show how police and judges blundered in being lenient with Hansen (such as by not ensuring that he would receive psychotherapy and lithium treatment) and to describe Anchorage's tawdry tenderloin district, where Hansen stalked nude dancers. A native of Hansen's hometown, Pocahontas, Iowa, DuClos describes young Hansen as a stuttering loner with acute feelings of inadequacy--elements common to serial killers, according to FBI research cited here. Convicted of assault with a deadly weapon in 1972, Hansen was quickly furloughed, and while he held down a respectable job as a baker and won trophies for his hunting, he resumed his killing spree. He would kidnap women, take them to the wilderness (often in his plane), sometimes rape them, and stab or shoot them. After a victim who escaped Hansen identified him, police confronted him and he confessed, leading troopers on a macabre tour to identify wilderness gravesites. Hansen is now serving a life sentence in an Alaska prison. (Feb.) St. Martin's Press 0-312-92905-6 / 9780312929053
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