{"product_id":"the-monster-killer-cahir-casey-9798233604560","title":"The Monster Killer: Murder, Migration, and the Making of Modern China","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Monster Killer: Murder, Migration, and the Making of Modern China\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the early years of the twenty-first century, a man on a bicycle moved through the farming villages of central China and killed sixty-seven people. Yang Xinhai - China's most prolific serial killer - operated across four provinces for three years while provincial police departments failed to share information, rural communities went unwarned by a state committed to the appearance of stability, and the social conditions that had produced him remained unexamined and unaddressed.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Monster Killer\u003c\/em\u003e is not simply a true crime narrative. It is a work of historical reckoning that uses one catastrophic criminal career as a lens through which to examine the transformation of Chinese society at the turn of the millennium: the great internal migration of one hundred and fifty million people, the \u003cem\u003ehukou\u003c\/em\u003e system that made migrants legal non-persons in their own country, the labor camp apparatus that deepened criminal formation rather than interrupting it, and the institutional failures of a state that suppressed public warnings in the name of stability while sixty-seven families went to sleep unwarned.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDrawing on criminology, sociology, mathematics, and the traditions of literary historical narrative, Cahir Casey asks the question that animates the best historical true crime writing: how does a human being become capable of this? The answer he finds implicates not just one man, but an entire society at its most vulnerable moment of transformation.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Cahir Casey\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9798233604560\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Silverback Books\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 02\/25\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 418\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.06lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.50h x 5.50w x 0.93d","brand":"Cahir Casey","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":50665262547199,"sku":"9798233604560","price":21.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_9402ff39-e36d-4463-8221-726af730262d.jpg?v=1792011007","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/the-monster-killer-cahir-casey-9798233604560","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}