Mind Games with a Serial Killer

The story of "The Riverside Prostitute Killer" Bill Suff a convicted mass murderer and baby killer now living on death row in San Quentin.

This is a unique book containing everything that was heretofore known and suspected but meticulously kept “off the record”, as well as details that only the killer knew until now. There are interviews with principals; transcripts of the illegal police interrogation of Bill; excerpts from the cookbook, poetry, and writings of Bill; a step-by-step reconstruction of the mental chess game between Bill and Brian; and appreciation for how “friendship” with this serial killer led to death for some but salvation for others.

For seven years– 1985 to 1992 Bill Suff “The Riverside Prostitute Killer” hid in plain sight while terrorizing three Southern California counties, murdering two dozen prostitutes, mutilating and then posing them in elaborate artistic scenarios in public places–he'd placed a lightbulb in the womb of one, dressed others in men's clothes, left one woman naked with her head bent forward and buried in the ground like an ostrich; he'd surgically removed the right breasts of some victims, and cut peepholes in the navels of others.

When the newspapers said that the killer only slayed whites and Hispanics, Bill ran right out and raped, tortured and killed a pregnant black woman. When a film company came to town to make a fictional movie about the then-uncaught killer, Bill left a corpse on their set. And, as the massive multi-jurisdictional police task force fruitlessly hunted the unknown killer, Bill personally served them bowls of his "special" chili at the annual Riverside County Employees' Picnic and Cook-off.

Lawyer-author Brian Lane planned on doing "just another" true crime book until he met Bill Suff, now awaiting execution on San Quentin's death row.

William Lester "Bill" Suff. He says he's innocent, says he's been framed, says he's the most wronged man in America, maybe the world. He's easygoing, genial, soft-spoken, loves to read, write, draw, play music and chat endlessly. He describes himself as a lovable nerd and a hope-less romantic, and he fancies himself a novelist and poet.

Brian first connected with Bill on the basis of writer to writer, and that's when the mind games began. Even in jail, Bill was the master manipulator, the seducer who somehow always got way. But Brian was determined to lose himself in Bill's mind, in Bill's fantasies, to get at the truth of who and what Bill Suff is. Only then would he know the truth of how close we are all to being just like Bill.

This is a macabre, wryly ironic book you cannot ignore, but read at your own risk.

Updated and Revised 2015 Edition of the Best-Selling Creative Non-Fiction Crime Story; Cat and Mouse.

As seen recently on British TV Show "Born to Kill".

When it was first released, Brian Alan Lane’s genre-bending bestseller “Mind Games With a Serial Killer” was simultaneously hailed and reviled.

Highly recommended: the creepiest book of the year... A surreal portrait of a murderous mind.” (Details Magazine)

“This book is an amazing piece of work -- it’s like Truman Capote on LSD.” (Geraldo Rivera on The Geraldo Rivera Show)

“A masterpiece...that needs to be sought out and savored by all those with a truly macabre sensibility... A post-modernistic objet trouvé...that could have been concocted by Vladimir Nabokov.” (The Boston Book Review)

"A new approach to crime...absolutely riveting, utterly terrifying." (Forensic Science Bookstore)