Behind Every Successful Psychopath: Why Karla Homolka was the perfect match for Paul Bernardo

"In my 1998 book No Claim to Mercy, about the controversial murder conviction of Robert Baltovich, I devoted quite a few pages to the infamous crimes of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka because there was a compelling case to be made that Bernardo was the man responsible for the disappearance of Elizabeth Bain, not Baltovich. At that time, a handful of books had been written about the Bernardo-Homolka case, but the best single piece of writing about the practically unfathomable dynamic that permitted the so-called “Ken and Barbie Killers” to commit such horrific crimes together was Patricia Pearson’s “Behind Every Successful Psychopath,” which was published in the October 1995 issue of the now defunct Saturday Night magazine. It deservedly won a National Magazine Award and other honours. In 2012, with Karla Homolka still in the news as a “free” woman, “Behind Every Successful Psychopath” remains an important work and is an excellent companion piece to Paula Todd’s just-released Finding Karla."

– Derek Finkle, Canadian Writers Group