- Title: Magnetized
- Author: Carlos Busqued
- Translator: Samuel Rutter
- Publisher & Release: Catapult- June 2020
- Length: 192 pages
- Rate & Recommend: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ for true crime fans
Here is the description from GoodReads:
A riveting psychological portrait for readers of true crime classics such as My Dark Places, The Stranger Beside Me, and I’ll Be Gone In the Dark, one of Argentina’s most innovative writers brings to life the story of a serial killer who, in 1982, murdered four taxi drivers without any apparent motive.
Over the course of one ghastly week in September 1982, the bodies of four taxi drivers were found in Buenos Aires, each murder carried out with the same cold precision. The assailant: a nineteen-year-old boy, odd and taciturn, who gave the impression of being completely sane. But the crimes themselves were not: four murders, as exact as they were senseless.
More than thirty years later, Argentine author Carlos Busqued began visiting Ricardo Melogno, the serial killer, in prison. Their conversations return to the nebulous era of the crimes and a story full of missing pieces. The result is a book at once hypnotic and unnerving, constructed from forensic documents, newspaper clippings, and interviews with Melogno himself. Without imposing judgment, Busqued allows for the killer to describe his way of retreating from the world and to explain his crimes as best he can. In his own words, Melogno recalls a visit from Pope Francis, grim depictions of daily life in prison, and childhood remembrances of an unloving mother who drove her son to Brazil to study witchcraft. As these conversations progress, the focus slowly shifts from the crimes themselves, to Melogno’s mistreatment and mis-diagnosis while in prison, to his current fate: incarcerated in perpetuity despite having served his full sentence.
Using these personal interviews, alongside forensic documents and newspaper clippings, Busqued crafted Magnetized, a captivating story about one man’s crimes, and a meditation on how one chooses to inhabit the world, or to become absent from it.
Magnetized is one of my first forays into the true crime genre. I love fictional serial killers and thought it would be fascinating to read into the mind of a real one!
I was right. I read this in two sittings and have no regrets. Melogno recounted his early life, what he remembered of the crimes, and about his life in prison in as much concrete detail as he can. One psychiatrist noted that his answers were so concrete that he was probably somewhere on the autism spectrum.
From a terrible early life where he learned no coping skills, to a dysfunctional post-military life, it was pretty fascinating to hear Melognos’s accounts. The utter lack of emotion i:n the book is also a factor because it was noted multiple times that the killer essentially didn’t have emotions. He seemed logical enough though and had some funny anecdotes, my favorite being about Pope Francis and the Satan worshipping chalice.
My favorite part as a nurse was seeing how absolutely terrible some of the psychiatric treatments are. I was totally horrified by the sleep therapy, quantity of drugs used, and general conditions of the hospitals described.
Overall i would totally recommend this to any fan of true crime and serial killer related novels.
Possible upsetting content involving animal abuse and child abuse, also murders being described.
Thank you so much to the publisher for my free copy in exchange for an honest review, all opinions are my own
Do you read true crime? Recommend me some good ones below!!
OneReadingNurse.com 