Serial killer coloring books.

A serial killer coloring book sounds like a joke until you see one. These are not cartoons. Each page is a full-page portrait of a real person, drawn by hand in dense black line work, with the objects, places and dates of the case packed in around the face. People who follow true crime know what the details mean; for everyone else they are a puzzle to work out while coloring.

Brian Berry has drawn eleven books with coloring pages. They look alike at a glance, but they are built differently: some go letter by letter, one goes state by state, one follows a single case from start to end. This page sets them side by side so you can choose, instead of guessing from thumbnails on Amazon.

The short answer

• Buying one book, for yourself or anyone: Bloody Alphabet. It is the first in the series and has far more ratings than any other.
• Only American cases: Bloody America, one killer per state.
• Interested in women who killed: American Female Serial Killers.
• A Ted Bundy fan: Hi, I’m Ted, a whole book about one case.
• A present with a sense of humor: Killers & Cocktails.
• Someone who prefers puzzles: the True Crime Activity Book, which has ten coloring pages among the puzzles.

The books side by side

What a page looks like

The pages are drawn to be read as well as colored. Below are details of a few of them, cropped to the face. Each links to the case file on this site that tells the story behind the drawing.

In Bloody Alphabet II, for example, the name runs across the top of the page in tall decorative lettering, surname first, so the page reads like a title card. Around the portrait sit the things the case is remembered for: the tools, the places, the objects that turned up in court or in the papers. Behind it all is a patterned background broken into small cells, which is where most of the coloring time goes. A small figure on the page gives a count of victims.

Bloody America uses a fixed layout, explained on a key page at the front. The state is marked on a small map of the country in one corner; a grim reaper holds the number of victims in the other. A frame under the portrait carries the full name, the press nickname and the years the killer was active, and small round symbols show how they killed and how the case ended, down to the method of execution.

This site shows only cropped faces like the ones above. If you want to see a whole page before you buy, four of them are free by email at the bottom of this page.

Start here: the Bloody Alphabet series

Four books, each running from A to Z with one killer for each letter. They do not depend on one another, so the order only matters if you want to collect them as they were published.

One killer for every state

Bloody America or Bloody Alphabet? They hardly overlap. Bloody Alphabet ranges across the world; Bloody America stays in the United States and is twice the length. Only three people are drawn in both: Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer and Bobby Joe Long. Owning one is no reason to skip the other.

Women who killed

One case, one book

The odd ones out

Puzzles with some coloring

Who these books are not for

• Children. The subject is real murder; Bloody Alphabet says “For Adults Only” on its title page, and that goes for the whole series.
• Anyone looking for big, simple shapes. The line work is dense, and the background cells are small. A single page is a long project, not a quick fill.
• Someone close to a case. Every portrait is of a real person who killed real people. If the person you are buying for may have a connection to a case, check the names first; the Bloody America page lists all fifty.

What to color them with

Colored pencils are the safest choice for the faces: they let you build up skin tones slowly, and the fine line work stays visible underneath. Fine-liner markers work well for the small cells of the backgrounds. Alcohol markers and gel pens give the strongest color but soak through paper; use them on the books printed one drawing to a sheet, and put a piece of card behind the page in any other book.

One approach worth trying: leave the portrait in grey pencil and color only the objects around it. The case details stand out, and you skip the hardest thing on the page to color well, which is skin.

Buying one as a gift?

The true crime gift guide sorts these books, and other ideas, by the kind of fan you are buying for: listeners, readers, puzzle solvers and the dark-humor friend.

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Questions people ask