How long does it take to read Fiend?
the shocking true story of America's youngest serial killer
Fiend by Harold Schechter takes about 5 hours 45 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 5 hours 45 minutes
A weekend read
First published 2000. 314 pages, about 86,350 words. Written for children.
12 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 9 hours 36 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 5 hours 45 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 3 hours 36 minutes |
The page count is the median across 2 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
When fourteen-year-old Jesse Pomeroy was arrested in 1874, a nightmarish reign of terror over an unsuspecting city came to an end. "The Boston Boy Fiend" was imprisoned at last. But the complex questions sparked by his ghastly crime spree-the hows and whys of vicious juvenile crime-were as relevant in the so-called Age of Innocence as they are today. Jesse Pomeroy was outwardly repellent in appearance, with a gruesome "dead" eye; inside, he was deformed beyond imagining. A sexual sadist of disturbing precocity, he satisfied his atrocious appetites by abducting and torturing his child victims. But soon, the teenager's bloodlust gave way to another obsession: murder.
Subjects: Murder, Serial murderers, Juvenile homicide, Biography, History, Boston (mass.), history
