title: The Shankill Butchers: The Real Story of Cold-Blooded Mass Murder
author:  Martin Dillon 
description: A chilling, stomach-turning study of Northern Ireland's infamous Shankill Butchers, a Loyalist gang of murderers who preyed on Belfast's Catholic population. Investigative journalist Dillon, who published this account a decade ago in Great Britain, describes the bloody handiwork of the Shankill Butchers. Operating out of Protestant West Belfast, the Butchers were members of a Loyalist paramilitary group (the Ulster Volunteer Force, or UVF), and were led by a sadistic, anti-Catholic psychopath named Lenny Murphy. Murphy would become ``the biggest mass murderer in British history,'' according to Dillon, who details Murphy's journey from schoolyard bully to petty criminal to cold-blooded serial killer. Dillon argues that Northern Ireland's toxic atmosphere of sectarian hatreds played a crucial role in producing Murphy, who used anti-Catholic ideology as a convenient cover for his sadistic love of violence. He murdered his first Catholic in 1972, beginning a killing spree that would last a decade. Accompanied by three gang members, Murphy would typically drive through Catholic areas of Belfast at night. Once a potential victim (usually a drunken man) had been located, Murphy would abduct him, torture him, and cut his throat with a butcher knife. Murphy visibly enjoyed killing Catholics, and Dillon's graphic descriptions of several murders make for gruesome reading. (Murphy typically ``hacked through his victim's throat until the knife touched the spine'' or ``until the head was almost severed from the trunk.'') Dillon also reproduces autopsy and police reports that will have queasy readers skipping over the gory details. The Butchers proved difficult to catch because the public of Northern Ireland were accustomed to shocking levels of sectarian violence and generally refused to cooperate with police. The Butchers were finally caught when one of their Catholic victims miraculously survived, and had the courage to testify against them. Murphy was murdered in 1982 by the Irish Republican Army, his sworn enemy. A notably depressing read that exposes the horror of Northern Ireland's history. (21 b&amp;w photos) -- <i>Copyright 1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.</i>
zlib_text: **Halfhead**
  
    
  
   **Stuart B Macbride**
  
   _Terrifying serial killer thriller set in the gritty Glasgow of the near
  future, from the bestselling author of the Logan McRae series._
  
   _Glasgow, not too far in the future. A new punishment has been devised for
  the perpetrators of serious crimes – one that not only reduces the prison
  population but also benefits society at large. The process is known as
  halfheading: the offender's lower jaw is removed and they are lobotomized.
  They are then put to work as cleaners in municipal areas like hospitals, where
  they serve as a warning to all that crime doesn't pay. But for one halfhead,
  it seems the lobotomy hasn't quite succeeded. Six years after her surgery, Dr
  Fiona Westfield 'wakes up' surrounded by the butchered remains of a man she
  has just brutally killed. As her mind slowly begins to return, she sets out on
  a quest for vengeance. William Hunter, Assistant Section Director of the
  'Network' – a military wing of the police – attends the crime