Occasionally, writers and publishing houses send me books to review. I’m a huge reader so any true crime books I can my hands on I devour. Masking Evil by Carol Anne Davis was definitely no exception.

What sets this book apart from the hundreds of true crime titles on the shelves at the moment is its format. The book covers an overview of 37 different cases of good men and women turned evil, from a charity worker who murdered his wives to a policewoman gone bad.

Davis writes almost as if she has first hand knowledge of the events of each crime, showing how thorough and detailed her research is. The snippets at the start of each chapter give an insight into what you can expect from each case, setting the scene and making this book incredibly hard to put down.

In every case, Davis does much more than just present the crime to the reader. For example, in my favourite case – the airline pilot Richard Craft – Davis provides a brief overview of Craft’s childhood. She highlights information in the perpetrators past which may have had an effect in later life. Davis has gained information from the friends and family of each criminal, turning over every stone to get to the truth of the crimes.

Overall, this book is a fantastic read. If you’re looking for some information on some possibly lesser known true crime cases, without getting in to a 200 page book on each crime, Masking Evil is definitely for you. I would say that its anthology-like nature makes this book easy to dip in and out of, but two hours into reading, I found myself saying ‘just one more chapter!’.

If you want more information on Davis, or would like to buy Masking Evil, you can visit her Amazon page. Carol Anne, thank you for sharing this incredible piece of work with me.

If you’ve read Masking Evil, let me know what you thought of it!