Familicidal Hearts: The Emotional Styles of 211 Killers, by Neil Websdale. New York, NY:Oxford University Press, 2010. 322pp. $35.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780195315417

In this book Websdale achieves an important goal. He historically and socially situates familial murders. In particular he points out the relevance (and efficacy) of an interdisciplinary approach, involving psychiatry, psychology, sociology and history. Websdale core subject is to classify perpetrators in a continuum: on the left hand side there are those people that he defines “livid coercive hearts”. They frequently adopt coercive violence in intimate relationships but they are all characterized by strong evidence of attempts to control their victims’ lives. On the right hand side the author poses “civil reputable hearts” who in contrast exhibit deep emotional restraints. They are responsible and successful women and men. Civil reputable hearts appear to think to their family members as extensions of themselves. Websdale devotes an amazing examination of the sociocultural and interactional context that precede murders occurrences but the relationships between perpetrators and their children do not play an important role, with rare exceptions. As a consequence, it remains unclear which figuration of feelings is a necessary conditions for familicide rather than for intimate partner homicide This is especially true in case of livid coercive hearts.