By CJ Trent

The book begins with author Jon Ronson trying to figure out the meaning of a strange handmade book that has been sent to various scientists. The book is mostly blank, expensively printed book, and consists of cryptic verses and cut-out pages. Intrigued by the mystery, he begins investigating and learns that the book is not an elaborate hoax or puzzle, but a sad and elaborate work by a disturbed and delusional person, a “madman” in Ronson’s words. He becomes fascinated by the world of madness. Using the sanity criteria, Jon is lead to the Bob Hare Psychopath Checklist. The checklist is a diagnostic tool invented by Dr. Hare to identify psychopaths, described by Hare as individuals possessing great charm and manipulative abilities coupled with a lack of empathy and other disturbing traits. Hare believes many successful businessmen and politicians score high on his checklist.

Ronson, armed with the checklist, takes the reader on a journey through mental institutions and into high-powered boardrooms, discovering psychopaths everywhere, sometimes locked up, sometimes in positions of power and influence. Are these people insane or not? And who decides? The question makes for an interesting read, quick paced and often quite funny, especially when Ronson turns the checklist on himself and his colleagues. A book well worth reading, thought provoking and disturbing for anyone wondering what makes us tick.

CJ Trent works at the College Store and is not a psychopath (she thinks).