# Books written solely from the villain's perspective **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 30, 2013, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-written-solely-from-the-villains-perspective/677461 "2013-12-30T05:06:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![divemaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/divemaster/32/78_2.png) [@divemaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/divemaster)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-written-solely-from-the-villains-perspective/677461/41 "2013-12-30T19:02:17Z")
Two works from Alfred Bester come to mind. The main character in **The Demolished Man** (Ben Reich) is a mentally unstable person fixated on committing murder. Any Gully Foyle from **The Stars My Destination** is a “monomaniacal and sophisticated monster bent upon revenge.” Of the two I guess Foyle is the more sympathetic, but still, both are undoubtedly criminals and villains. ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-written-solely-from-the-villains-perspective/677461/42 "2013-12-30T20:07:27Z")
I read a couple of short stories once, and I think it was in a volume of “Alfred Hitchcock Presents”, but I’ve never been able to find it. In the first, all I can remember is that the villain hides the murder weapon in the toilet tank…he thinks he’s clever, and the cops come in and say “Check the toilet tank. That’s always the first place they hide it.” In the other, the narrator hides bodies for the mob. It ends with him going into hiding because the dump he hides them in is going to be excavated so an apartment building can be constructed there. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-written-solely-from-the-villains-perspective/677461/43 "2013-12-30T20:18:55Z")
If we are including collections of short histories there books that collect the short tales of Edgar Allan Poe, he liked to make tales from the point of view of the criminals. Look for collections that have classics like _The Tell-Tale Heart_ and the _Cask of Amontillado_. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-written-solely-from-the-villains-perspective/677461/44 "2013-12-30T20:44:30Z")
Then there’s DeSade’s _Juliette, or the Rewards of Vice_, where essentially every character who makes it through the book alive is a criminal of the greatest depravity (then again that’s partly the point he was making in between all the sex-crime scenes, namely that the ruling classes of his time could literally get away with murder). ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-written-solely-from-the-villains-perspective/677461/45 "2013-12-30T21:00:59Z")
Am I the first to mention Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me? Pretty much a classic of the type. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-written-solely-from-the-villains-perspective/677461/46 "2013-12-30T21:17:31Z")
Not to mention _Double Indemnity_. ---
**Author:** ![LawMonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d6d6ee/32.png) [@LawMonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LawMonkey)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-written-solely-from-the-villains-perspective/677461/47 "2013-12-30T21:29:01Z")
Reading through this thread, there seem to be lots of books where the protagonist is **a** villain, but very few in which the protagonist is **the** villain. “The villain” is almost a synonym for antagonist, and everyone’s the hero of their own story. Flashy or Locke Lamora are certainly criminals, and Flashy’s a cad, and they’re certainly “the villain” if you happen to be someone who crosses them or a mark, but I don’t think either of them would think of themselves that way (except to the extent “villain” is a synonym for criminal or cad). ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-written-solely-from-the-villains-perspective/677461/48 "2013-12-30T21:34:34Z")
> [@epbrown01](#): > > So, is a villain the same as an anti-hero? No, but it would be helpful if the OP would clarify what he’s looking for: a book from the perspective of a bad/evil/criminal character, a book from the perspective of an established character traditionally regarded as the villain, or a book told from the perspective of a character who’s the antagonist of the story’s main character or hero? That last one seems like it would be tricky to pull off, but one book already mentioned in this thread may qualify. It’s an Agatha Christie mystery told from the perspective of the killer, but for most of the book the narrator plays innocent even for the reader. Until you get to the twist it seems like a fairly typical Christie mystery, in which Detective Poirot’s investigation is observed by a supporting character who was not involved with the crime. Poirot is the hero of many of Christie’s novels, so this is arguably a case of the narrator as antagonist. I’ll spoiler the title: _The Murder of Roger Ackroyd_Christie wrote another novel from the perspective of the killer where again you don’t learn until the end that the narrator is the murderer, but IIRC most of this book is not about the investigation and the detective who solves the crime is not one of Christie’s recurring heroes. So I’d consider this other book just an example of a story from the perspective of a bad/criminal person. The title of this one is: _Endless Night_A “traditional villain tells their side of the story” book that I don’t believe has been mentioned yet is Mary Stewart’s _The Wicked Day_, from the perspective of Mordred. Another Arthurian retelling is Marion Zimmer Bradley’s _The Mists of Avalon_, much of which is from the perspective of Morgana le Fay. ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-written-solely-from-the-villains-perspective/677461/49 "2013-12-30T21:42:18Z")
> [@Dale\_Sams](#): > > “For Love of Evil”, the sixth book in Piers Anthony’s _Incarnations of Immortality_ series. This is what I came in here to post. The previous books had Satan as an antagonist and this one retells all the stories from Satan’s point of view. ---
**Author:** ![mascaroni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dc4da7/32.png) [@mascaroni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mascaroni)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-written-solely-from-the-villains-perspective/677461/50 "2013-12-30T22:05:09Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Jesse Bullington’s _The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart_ has the titular brothers steal and murder their way across medieval Europe and the Middle East, always just a few steps ahead of a literal pack of demons called up in revenge by the survivors of their vile enterprises. After reading some reviews I’ll be buying that. It also brought to mind Michelle Lovric’s _The Book Of Human Skin_, set later, largely in Venice, in which the main character and sometime narrator is the Villain/Anti-Hero. One I forgot: Horace Silver’s _Judas Pig_… although a lot of people think it as non-fiction dressed up as fiction. ---
**Author:** ![Ichbin\_Dubist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/51bf81/32.png) [@Ichbin\_Dubist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ichbin_Dubist)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-written-solely-from-the-villains-perspective/677461/51 "2013-12-30T22:11:01Z")
[I Am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to Be Your Class President](http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/i-am-a-genius-of-unspeakable-evil-and-i-want-to-be-your-class-president-josh-lieb/1100315644?ean=9781595143549), from the YA fiction world. Well. he’s only 12, but clearly a traditional villain. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-written-solely-from-the-villains-perspective/677461/52 "2013-12-30T23:10:38Z")
The day of the jackal. ---
**Author:** ![Deegeea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Deegeea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deegeea)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-written-solely-from-the-villains-perspective/677461/53 "2013-12-30T23:25:01Z")
> [@LawMonkey](#): > > Reading through this thread, there seem to be lots of books where the protagonist is **a** villain, but very few in which the protagonist is **the** villain. “The villain” is almost a synonym for antagonist, and everyone’s the hero of their own story. Flashy or Locke Lamora are certainly criminals, and Flashy’s a cad, and they’re certainly “the villain” if you happen to be someone who crosses them or a mark, but I don’t think either of them would think of themselves that way (except to the extent “villain” is a synonym for criminal or cad). Along these lines, the one I can think of where the protagonist is **the** villain, it would be quite a spoiler to say so, because you don’t find out till the end of the book. For this reason: He’s either pretending to be the victim of his own crime, or has actually gone insane and convinced himself he is said victim. It’s not the same one The Other Waldo Pepper referred to, but it’s by an author mentioned in this thread for another of his books. Author in this Spoiler Tag. Iain M. Banks Title in this Spoiler Tag. **Use of Weapons**. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-written-solely-from-the-villains-perspective/677461/54 "2013-12-30T23:26:43Z")
> [@the\_diego](#): > > The day of the jackal. Frederick Forsyth’s novel isn’t told _exclusively_ from the Jackal’s viewpoint. Forsyth switches his POV around in a way that would have a Creative Writing teacher pulling his/her hair out, but which works very well. He gives you the Point of View of Claude Lebel, of the OAS officers, of random guards and French officials, and of Winston Churchill. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Peyote\_Coyote](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f8ce5/32.png) [@The\_Peyote\_Coyote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Peyote_Coyote)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-written-solely-from-the-villains-perspective/677461/55 "2013-12-30T23:29:29Z")
Hope no one has posted this (I’m at work and due back in two minutes) but \*Elmer Gantry \*by Sinclair Lewis ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2013, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-written-solely-from-the-villains-perspective/677461/56 "2013-12-31T00:53:21Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > I never read the book and it’s been a long time since I’ve seen the movie _and_ I assume this isn’t quite what the OP had in mind since it’s not like we’re going and following the villain as he commits his crimes, but how about _Dead Man Walking_. > **[Dead Man Walking (1995) ⭐ 7.5 | Crime, Drama](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112818/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1)** > > 2h 2m | R The central character was the nun, not the killer. Unless you’re thinking of a different film with a similar title. ---
**Author:** ![zamboniracer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e9a140/32.png) [@zamboniracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zamboniracer)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2013, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-written-solely-from-the-villains-perspective/677461/57 "2013-12-31T01:16:34Z")
_The Wolf’s Story: What Really Happened to Little Red Riding Hood_ [Link](http://www.amazon.com/The-Wolfs-Story-Really-Happened/dp/0763627852) ---
**Author:** ![Find\_Friends](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@Find\_Friends](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Find_Friends)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2013, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-written-solely-from-the-villains-perspective/677461/58 "2013-12-31T01:35:49Z")
I’m surprised no one so far has mentioned “Screwtape Letters” by C.S. Lewis. At least, it did not show up on a page search. I’m pressed for time at a public library PC. ---
**Author:** ![Becky2844](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Becky2844](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Becky2844)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2013, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-written-solely-from-the-villains-perspective/677461/59 "2013-12-31T04:52:46Z")
_Zombie_ by Joyce Carol Oats. It’s an unsettling book. ---
**Author:** ![Alba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ea666f/32.png) [@Alba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alba)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2013, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-written-solely-from-the-villains-perspective/677461/60 "2013-12-31T07:33:47Z")
> [@LawMonkey](#): > > They’re certainly very naughty boys, but I don’t know as I’d call them “the villain.” It’s all a matter of perspective, and from theirs (and thus, the reader’s), they’re anything but. The Grey King is the villain in the first book; I’m sure they’ve got others in the latter books. Yep, realised that this morning when I was thinking of what a villain really is. > [@](#): > > villain > ˈvɪlən/Submit > noun > 1. > (in a film, novel, or play) a character whose evil actions or motives are important to the plot. > “a pantomime villain” Although I will say, as you said as well, that if you’re their mark their actions are evil. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-written-solely-from-the-villains-perspective/677461.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-written-solely-from-the-villains-perspective/677461.md?page=4)